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Theology Library

SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY
AT CLAREMONT
California

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(DE CIVITATE DEI)

The Ancient and Modern Library of Theological Literature

THE CITY OF GOD

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1909 ae

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SAINT AUGUSTINE

A TRANSLATION INTO ENGLISH

BY JOHN HEALEY

FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1610

VOLUME TWO

Lodinburgh
SOHN) GR ANT
1909

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‘Theology |_ibrary

SCHOOL OF THE OLeer
AT CLAREMONT
California

St Hugustine,

THE
THIRTEENTH BOOK OF THE CITY OF GOD.

—0:——
CHAPTER.

Of the first man’s fall, and the procurement of mortality.

alle got through the intricate questions of the world’s original,
and mankind’s, our method now calls us to discourse of the first
man’s fall, nay the first fall of both in that kind, and consequently of the
original and propagation of our mortality : for God made not man as He
did angels, that although they sinned, yet they could not die: but so,
that having performed their course in obedience, death could not
prevent them from partaking for ever of blessed and angelical immor-
tality: but having left this course, death should take them into just
condemnation, as we said in the last book. -

CHAPTER II.
Of the death that may befall the immortal soul, and of the body's death.

But I see I must open this kind of death a little plainer. For man’s
soul (though it be immortal) dies a kind of death. It is called im-
mortal, because it can never fail to be living, and sensitive: and
the body is mortal, because it may be destitute of life, and left quite
dead in itself. But the death of the soul is, when God leaves it : and
the death of the body is when the soul leaves it: so that the death of
both, is when the soul being left of God, leaves the body. And this
death is seconded by that which the Scripture calls the second death.
This our Saviour signified, when He said, ‘ Fear Him which is able to
destroy both body and soul in hell:” which coming not to pass before

IL. A

2 ser St Augustine,

the body is joined to the soul, never to be separated, it is strange that
the body can be said to die by that death, which severs not the soul
from it, but torments them both together. For that eternal pain (of
which we will speak hereafter) is fitly called the soul’s death, because it
lives not with God: but how is it the body’s which lives with the
soul? for otherwise it could not feel the corporal pains that await it
after the resurrection : is it because all life howsoever is good, and all
pain evil, that the body is said to die, wherein the soul is cause of sorrow
rather than life? Therefore the soul lives by God, when it lives well
(for it cannot live without God working good in it): and the body
lives by the soul, when the soul lives in the body, whether it live by
God or no, For the wicked have life of body, but none of soul: their -
souls being dead (that is, forsaken of God), having power as long as their
immortal proper life fails not, to afford them this. But in the last con-
demnation, though man be not insensitive, yet this sense of his being
neither pleasing nor peaceful, but sore and painful, is justly termed
rather death than life: and therefore is it called the second death, be-
cause it follows the first breach of nature, either between God and the
soul, or this and the body : of the first death therefore we may say, that
it is good to the good, and bad to the bad. But the second is bad in
all badness, unto all, and good to none.

CHAPTER III.

Whether death propagated unto all men from the first, be punishment
Of sin to the saints.

But here is a question not to be omitted: whether the first death be
good to the good? If it be so, how can it be the punishment of sin?
tor had not our first parents sinned, they had never tasted it: how
‘then can it be good to the upright that can happen only to offenders?
and if it happen only to offenders, it would not be good, for it would
not be at all unto the upright: for why should they have punishment
that have no guilt? We must confess, then, that had not our first
parents sinned, they had not died: but sinning, the punishment of death
was inflicted upon them and all their posterity: for they should not
produce anything but what themselves were, and the greatness of their
crime depraved their nature: so that that which was penal in the first
man’s offending, was made natural in the birth of all the rest: for they
came not of man, as man came of the dust. The dust was man’s
material: but man is man’s parent. That which is earth is not flesh
though flesh be made of earth: but that which man the father is, man
the son is also. For all mankind was in the first man, to be derived
from him by the woman, when this couple received their sentence of
condemnation, And that which man was made, not in his creation,

Of the City of God. 3

but in his fall and condemnation, that he begot, in respect, I mean, of
sin and death. For his sin was not cause of man’s weakness in infancy,
or whiteness of body, as we see in infants: those God would have as
the original of the infants, whose parents he had cast down to bestial
mortality, as it is written: “Man was in honour, and understood
not, but became like to the beasts that perish,” unless that infants be
weaker in motion and appetite than all the other creatures, to show
man’s mounting excellence above them all, comparable to a shaft that
flies the stronger when it is drawn farthest back in the bow. There-
fore man’s presumption and just sentence, adjudged him not to those
imbecilities of nature: but his nature was depraved unto the admission
of concupiscential inobedience in his members against his will: and
thereby was bound to death by necessity, and to produce his offspring
under the same conditions that his crime deserved. From which band
of sin, if infants by the Mediator’s grace be freed, they will only suffer
the first death, of body ; but from the eternal, penal second death, their
freedom from sin shall quit them absolutely.

CHAPTER IV.

Why the first death is not withheld from the regenerate
Srom sin by grace.

IF any think they should not suffer this, being the punishment of guilt,
and their guilt cleared by grace, he may be resolved in our book called
“ De Baptismo Parvulorum.” ‘There we say that the separation of soul
and body remaineth to succeed (though after sin), because if the sacra-
ment of regeneration should be immediately seconded by immortality of
body, our faith were disannulled, being an expectation of a thing unseen.
But by the strength and vigour of faith was this fear of death to be
formerly conquered, as the martyrs did: whose conflicts had had no
victory, nor no glory, nay, had been no conflicts, if they had been
deified and freed from corporal death immediately upon their regenera-
tion: for if it were so, who would not run unto Christ to have his child
baptised, least he should die? Would his faith be approved by this visible
reward? No, it would be no faith, because he received his reward
immediately. But now the wonderful grace of our Saviour has turned
the punishment of sin unto the greater good of righteousness. Then it
was said to man, “Thou shalt die if thou sin;” now it is said to the
martyr, “ Die, to avoid sin.” Then, “If you break My laws, you shall
die ;” now, “If you refuse to die, you break My laws.” That which we
feared then if we offended, we must now choose, not to offend. Thus
by God’s ineffable mercy the punishment of sin is become the instru-
ment of virtue, and the pain due to the sinner’s guilt is the just man’s
merit. Then did sin purchase death, and now death purchases right-

4 St Augustine.

eousness: I mean, in the martyrs, whom their persecutors bade either
renounce their faith or their life, and those just men chose rather to
suffer that for believing which the first sinners suffered for not believing :
for unless they had sinned they had not died, and martyrs had sinned
if they had not died. They died for sin, these sin not because they die.
The others’ crime made death good, which before was evil, but God
has given such grace to faith, that death, which is life’s contrary, is
here made the ladder whereby to ascend to life.

CHAPTER V.

As the wicked use the good law evil, so the good use death,
which ts evil, well.

For the apostle, desiring to show the hurt of sin being unprevented by
grace, did not hesitate to say that the law which forbids sin is the
strength of sin. “The sting of death,” says he, “is sin, and the strength
of sin is the law.” Most true : for forbidding of unlawful desires, increase
them in him, where righteousness is not of power to suppress all such
affections to sin. And righteousness can never be loved unless God’s grace
produce this love. But yet to show that the law is not evil, though he
calls it the strength of sin, he says in another place, in the same question :
“The law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good.”
“Was that then which is good,” says he, “ made death to me? God
forbid: but sin that it might appear sin, wrought death in me by that
which is good, that sin might be out of measure sinful by the command-
ment.” Out of measure, says he, because prevarication is added 3 the
law being also contemned through the lust of sin. Why do we recite
this? Because as the law is not evil when it excites concupiscence in the
bad, so earth is not good when it increased the glory of the good : neither
the law, when it is forsaken by sinners, and makes them prevaricators :
ner death, when it is undertaken for truth, and makes them martyrs.
Consequently the law forbidding sin is good, and death being the reward
of sin, evil. But as the wicked use all things, good and evil, badly, so
the just use all things, evil and good, well. Therefore the wicked use
the law, that is good, badly, and they use death, that is bad, well.

CHAPTER VI.

The general evil of that death that severs soul and body.

WHEREFORE, as for the death that divides soul and body, when they
suffer it whom we say are a-dying, it is good unto none. For it has a
sharp unnatural sense, by which nature is wrung this way and that in the
composition of the living creature, until it be dead, and until all the
sense be gone wherein the soul and body were combined. Which

Of the City of God. 5

great trouble, one stroke of the body, or one rapture of the soul often-
times prevents, and outruns sense, in swiftness. But whatsoever it is
in death, that takes away our sense with so grievous a sense, being
faithfully endured, it augments the merit of patience, but takes not away
the name of pain. It is certainly the death of the first man, duly propa-
gated, though if it be endured for faith and justice, it be the glory of the
regenerate. Thus death being the reward of sin, sometime quits sin
from all reward.

CHAPTER VII.
Of the death that such as are not regenerate do suffer for Christ.

For whosoever he is that being not yet regenerate, dies for confessing
of Christ, it frees him of his sin, as well as if he had received the sacra-
ment of baptism. For He that said, “ Unless a man be born again of
water, and of the Holy Spirit, he shall not enter into the kingdom of
God,” excepts these elsewhere, in as general a saying, ‘“‘ Whosoever con-
fesses Me before men, him will I confess before My Father which is in
heaven :” and again, “He that loseth his soul for Me, shall find it.”
Hereupon it is that, ‘‘ Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of
the saints.” For what is more dear, than that death wherein all a man’s
badness is abolished, and his good augmented? Those that die
baptised, because they could live no longer, are not of that merit that
those that die willingly, whereas they might have lived longer, because
these had rather die in confessing Christ, than deny Him, and so
come to baptism. Which if they had done, this sacrament would have
forgiven it, because they denied Him for fear of death. For in it even
their villainy was forgiven that murdered Christ. - But how could they
love Christ so dearly, as to condemn life for Him, but by abounding in
the grace of that Spirit, that inspires where it pleases? Precious, there-
fore, is the death of those saints, who took such gracious hold of the
death of Christ, that they did not flinch from engaging their own souls in
the quest of Him, and whose death shewed that they made use of that
which before was the punishment of sin to the producing of a greater
harvest of glory. But death ought not to seem good, because it is
- God’s help, and not the one power that has made It of such good use,
that being once propounded as a penalty laid upon sin, it is now elected,
as a deliverance from sin, and an expiation of sin, to the crowning of

righteousness with glorious victory.

CHAPTER VIII.

That the saints in suffering the first death for the truth, are quit
rom the second.

For if we mark well, in dying well and laudably for the truth, is a
worse death avoided, and therefore we take part of it, lest the whole

6 St Augustine.

would fall upon us, and a second, that should never have end. We
undertake the separation of the body from the soul, lest we should
come to have the soul severed from God, and then from the body: and
so man’s first death being past, the second, that endless one, should fall
presently upon him. Wherefore the death as I say that we suffer when
we die, and causes us to die, is good unto no man, but it is well tolerated,
for attaining of good. But when men once are in death, and called,
dead, then we may say that it is good to the good, and bad to the bad.
For the good souls, being severed from their body, are in rest, and the
evil, in torment, until the bodies of the first rise to life eternal, and the
latter unto the eternal, or second death.

CHAPTER IX.

Whether a man at the hour of his death may be said to be amongst the
dead, or the dying.
Bur now for the time of the soul’s separation from the body (be it good
or bad), as we say it is in death, or after it? if it be after death,
it is not death then being past and gone, but rather the present life of
the soul, good or bad. For the death was evil to them whilst it was
death, that is, whilst they, dying, suffered it, because it was a grievous ©
passion (though the good use this evil well) : how then can death being
past, be either good or bad? Again, if we mark well, we shall find that
that grievous suffering in man is not death. For as long as we feel, we
live: and as long as we live, we are before death, and not in it: for
when death comes, it takes away all sense, yea, even that which is
grieved by death’s approach. And therefore how we may call those
that are not dead, but in the pangs of deadly affliction, dying, is hard
to explain, though they may be called ordinarily so: for when death is
come, they are no more in dying, but in death, or, dead. Therefore is
none dying but the living: because when one is in the greatest ex-
tremity, or passage, as we say, if his soul be not gone, he is yet alive
then. Thus is he both living and dying: going to death and from life,
yet living as long as the soul is in the body: and not yet in death, be-
cause the soul is undeparted. And when it is departed, then is he not
in death, but rather after death : who then can say who is in death? no
man dying is, if no man can be both living and dying at once: for as
long as the soul is in the body we cannot deny that he lives. But if it
be said that he is dying who is drawing towards death, and yet that the
dying and the living cannot be both in one at once, then I do not know
who is living.
CHAPTER: X:
Whether this mortal life be rather to be called death than life.

For as soon as ever man enters this mortal body, he begins a perpetual
journey unto death. For that this changeable life enjoins him to, if I

Of the City of God. ”

may call the course unto death, a life. For there is none but is nearer
death at the year’s end than he was at the beginning : to-morrow, than
to-day : to-day, than yesterday, by-and-by, than just now, and now than
a little before ; each part of time that we pass, cuts off so much from
our life: and the remainder still decreases: so that our whole life is
nothing but a course unto death, wherein one can neither stay nor slack
his pace: but all run in one manner, and with one speed. For the
short liver ran his course no faster than the long: both had a like
passage of time, but the first had not so far to run as the latter,
both making speed alike. It is one thing to live longer, and another
to run faster. He that lives longer, runs farther, but not a moment
faster. And if each one begin to be in death as soon as his life begins
to shorten (because when it is ended he is not then in death but after
it), then is every man in death as soon as everhe is conceived. For
what else do all his days, hours, and minutes declare, but that they
being done, the death wherein he lived, is come to an end: and that
his time is now no more in death (he being dead), but after death?
Therefore if man cannot be in life and death both at once, he is never in
life as long as he is in that dying rather than living body. Or is he in
both? in life that is still diminished, and in death because he dies,
whose life diminishes? for if he be not in life, what is it that is
diminished, until it be ended, and if he be not in death, what is it that
diminishes the life? for life being taken from the body until it be
ended, could not be said now to be after death, but that death ended
it and that it was death whilst it diminished. And if man be not in
death, but after it, when his life is ended, where is he but in death
whilst it is a diminishing ?
CHAPTER XI.

Whether one may be living and dead both together.

But if it be absurd to say a man is in death before he come to it (for
what is it that his course runs unto, if he be there already ?) chiefly
because it is too strange to say one is both living and dying, since we
cannot say one is both sleeping and waking, we must find when a man
is dying. Dying before death come, he is not, then is he living: dying
when death is come, is he not, for then is he dead. This is after death,
and that is before it. When is he in death then? for then is he dying,
to proportionate three things, /zving, dying, and dead, unto three times,
before death, in death, and after. Therefore when he is in death, that
is, neither living, or before death, nor dead, or after death, is hard to be
defined. For whilst the soul is in the body (especially with sense)
man lives assured, as yet being soul and body, and therefore is before
death, and not in it. But when the soul and sense are gone, then is he
dead, and after death. These two then take away his means of being

8 St Augustine.

in death, or dying, for if he live he is before death, and if he cease to
live, he is after death. Therefore he is never dying nor in death.
For this is sought as present in the change of the times, and is found
the one passing into the other without the least interposed space. Do
we not see then that by this reason the death of the body is nothing ?
If it be, how is it anything, being in nothing, and wherein nothing can
be? for if we live, it is not anything yet, because we are before it, not
in it; if we live not, it is nothing still, for now we are after it and not
in it. But now, if death be nothing before nor after, what sense 1s
there in saying, before, or after, death? I would to God we had lived
well in Paradise that death might have been nothing indeed. But now,
there is not only such a thing, but it is so grievous unto us, as neither
tongue can tell, nor reason avoid. Let us therefore speak according to
custom: for so we should, and call the time ere death come, before
death : as it is written, “ Judge none blessed before his death.” Let us
call the time when it is already come, after death: this or that was
after his death: and let us speak of the present time, as we can: he
dying, gave such a legacy, he dying left this much, or thus much,
though no man could do this but the living, and rather before his death,
than at, or in his death. And let us speak as the Holy Scripture
speaks of the dead, saying they were not after death but in death,
“For in death there is no remembrance of thee:” for until they rise
again they are justly said to be in death as one is in sleep until he
awake. ‘Though such as are in sleep we say are sleeping, then may we
not say that such are dead, are dying. For they that are once separate
wholly from their bodies, are past dying the bodily death (whereof we
speak) any more. But this that I say, one cannot declare, how the
dying man may be said to live, or how the dead man can be said to be
in death : for how can he be after death, if he be in death, since we can-
not call him dying, as we may do he that is in sleep, sleeping, or he
that is in languor, languishing, or he that is in sorrow, sorrowing, or in
life, living? But the dead until they arise are said to be in death, yet
we cannot say they are dying. And therefore I think it was not for
no cause (perhaps God decreed it) that morior, the Latin word for ‘to
die,’ could not by any means be brought by grammarians unto the form
of other verbs. Ovrtor, ‘to arise,’ hath ordus in the preterperfect tense,
and so have other verbs that are declined by the participle of the
preter tense. But morior must have mortuus for the preterperfect tense,
doubling the letter w, for mortuus ends like fatuus, arduus, conspicuus,
and such like that are no preterperfect tenses, but nouns, declined
without tenses or times: and this as if it were a noun declinable, that
cannot be declined, is put for the participle of the present tense. So
that it is convenient, that as it cannot effect the signification by act, no
more should the name be to be declined by art. Yet by the grace ot
our Redeemer, we may decline (that is, avoid) the second death. For

Of the City of God. 9

this is the sore one, and the worst of evils, being no separation but
rather a combination of body and soul into eternal torture. Therein
shall none be before death nor after death, but eternally in death: never
living, never dead, but ever dying. For man can never be in worse
death, than when the death he is in, is endless.

CHAPTER XII.

Of the death that God threatened to promise the first man withal if he
transgressed.

Ir therefore it be asked what death God threatened man withal upon
his transgression and breach of obedience, whether it were bodily or
spiritual, or that second death: we answer, it was all: the first con-
sists of two, and the second entirely of all: for as the whole earth
consists of many lands, and the whole Church of many churches, so
doth the universal death consist of all, the first consisting of two, the
bodies and the souls, being the death wherein the soul being forsaken
of God, forsakes the body, and endures pains for the time: but the
second being that wherein the soul being forsaken of God, endures
pains for ever. Therefore when God said to the first man that He
placed in Paradise, as concerning the forbidden fruit, “ Whensoever
thou eatest thereof, thou shalt die the death,” he comprehends therein,
not only the first part of the first death, wheresoever the soul loses
God, nor the latter only, wherein the soul leaves the body, and is
punished after that separation, but also that last part, or the second
which is the last of deaths, eternal, and following after all this is com-
prehended in that commination.

: CHAPTER XIII.
What punishment was first laid on man’s prevarication.

For after mankind had broken the precept, he was first, forsaken of
God’s grace and confounded with his own nakedness: and so with the
fig leaves (the first perhaps that came to hand), they covered their
nakedness and shame: their members were before as they were then,
but they were not shameful before, whereas now they felt a new motion
of their disobedient flesh, as the reciprocal punishment of their dis-
obedience, for the soul being now delighted with perverse liberty and
scorning to serve God, could not have the body at the former command :
and having willingly forsaken God the superior, it could not have the
inferior so serviceable as it desired, nor had the flesh subject as it might
have had always, had itself remained God’s subject. For then the
flesh began to covet, and contend against the spirit, and with this con-
tention are we all born, drawing death from our original, and bearing
nature’s corruption, and contention, or victory in our members.

10 St Augustine.

CHAPTER XIV.

In what state God made man, and into what state he fell by his voluntary
i choice.

For God (the Creator of nature, and not of vice) made man upright:
who being willingly depraved and justly condemned, begot all his off-
spring under the same depravation and condemnation: for in him were
we all, when as, he being seduced by the woman, corrupted us all: by
her that before sin was made of himself. We had not our particular
forms yet, but there was the seed of our natural propagation, which
being corrupted by sin must needs produce man of that same nature,
the slave to death, and the object of just condemnation: and therefore
this came from the bad using of free-will, thence arose all this team of
calamity, drawing all men on into misery (excepting God’s saints) from
their corrupted original, even to the beginning of the second death
which has no end.

CHAPTER XV.

That Adam forsook God ere God forsook him, and that the souls first
death was the departure from God.

WHEREFORE in that it was said, ‘“‘Ye shall die the death,” because it
was not said the deaths, if we understand that death, wherein the soul
leaves the life, that is God (for it was not forsaken ere it forsook
Him, but contrary, the one will being their first leader to evil, but the
Creator’s will being the first leader to good, both in the creation of
it, before it had being, and the restoring of it when it had fallen):
wherefore if we do understand that God meant but of this death, where
He says, ‘‘ Whensoever thou eatest thereof thou shalt die the death :”
as if He had said, Whensoever you forsake Me in disobedience, I will
forsake you in justice: yet verily do all the other deaths follow the
denunciation of this death. For in that the soul felt a disobedient
motion of the flesh, and thereupon covered the body’s secret parts, in
this was the first death felt, that is, the departure of the soul from God.
Which was signified in that, that when the man in mad fear had gone
and hid himself, God said to him, “Adam, where art thou?” not
ignorantly seeking him, but watchfully warning him to look well where
he was, seeing God was not with him. But when the soul forsakes
the body decayed with age, then is the other death felt, whereof God
said in imposing man’s future punishment, “ Dust thou art, and unto
dust shalt thou return:” that by these two, the first death which is of
whole man, might be accomplished, which the second should second,
if God’s grace procure not man’s freedom from it: for the body which
is earth, returns not to earth but by the one death, that is, the departure
of the soul from it. Wherefore all Christians holding the Catholic faith,
believe that the bodily death lies upon mankind by no law of nature,

Of the City of God. II

as if God had made man mortal except as a due punishment for sin:
because God in scourging this sin, said unto that man, from whom we
are all descended, “ Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”

CHAPTER XVI.

Of the philosophers that held corporal death not to be penal, whereas
Plato brings in the Creator promising the lesser gods that they should
never leave their bodies.

But the philosophers against whose calumnies we defied this City of

God, that is, His Church, think they give us a witty scoff for saying that

the soul’s separation from the body is to be held as part of the punish-

ment, when as they affirm that then is the soul perfectly blessed when

it leaves the body, and goes up pure and naked unto God. If I

should find no battery against this opinion out of their own books, I

should have a great ado to prove not the body, but the corruptibility of

the body to be the soul’s burden: whereupon is that which we cited in
our last book, “ A corruptible body is heavy unto the soul.” In adding
corruptible he shews that this being inflicted as sin’s punishment
upon the body, and not the body itself, is heavy to the soul: and if he
had not added it, yet must we have understood itso. But Plato affirm-
ing plainly that the gods that the Creator made, have incorruptible
bodies, and bringing in their Maker, promising them (as a great benefit)
to remain therein eternally, and never to be separated from them, why
then do those never dissemble their own knowledge, to procure Christ-
ianity trouble: and contradict themselves in seeking to argue against
us? Plato’s words Tully translates thus: bringing in the great God,
speaking thus to the gods He had made: “You that are of the Gods’
original, whom I have created, attend: these your bodies by My will,
are indissoluble : although every compound may be dissolved. But it
is evil to desire to dissolve a thing compounded by reason, but seeing
that you are created, you are neither immortal nor indissoluble : yet shall
you never be dissolved, nor die: these shall not prevail against My will,
which is a greater assurance of your eternity, than all your forms, and
compositions are.” Behold, Plato says that their gods, by their creation
and combination of body and soul, are mortal, and yet immortal, by
the decree and will of Him that made them. If therefore it be pain to
the soul to be bound in anybody, why should God seem to take
away their fear of death, by promising them eternal immortality? not
because of their nature, which is compounded, and not simple, but
because of His Holy will, which can eternise creatures, and preserve
compounds immortally, from dissolution: whether Plato holds this true
of the stars, is another question. For we may not consequently grant
him that those globous illuminate bodies, shining night and day upon
earth, have each one a peculiar soul whereby it lives, being blessed

12 St Augustine.

and intellectual, as he affirms directly of the world also. But this,
as I said, is no question for this place. This I held fit to recite
against those that affecting the name of Platonists, are proudly ashamed
of the name of Christians, lest the communication of this name with
the vulgar, should debase the proud (because small) number of the
Palliate. These seeking holes in the coat of Christianity, bark at
the eternity of the body, as if the desire of the soul’s eternity, and the
continuance of it in the frail body, were contraries; whereas their
master Plato holds it as a gift given by the great God to the lesser,
that they should not die, that is, be severed from the bodies He gave
them.

CHAPTER XVII.
Against the opinion, that earthly bodies cannot be corruptible, nor eternal.

THEY agree in this also, that earthly bodies cannot be eternal, and yet
hold the whole earth which they hold but as a part of their great god
(though not of their highest) the world to be eternal. Seeing then their
greatest God, made another god, greater than all the rest beneath him,
that is, the world, and seeing they hold this is a creature having an
intellectual soul included in it by which it lives, having the parts con-
sisting of four elements, whose connection that great God (lest this other
should ever perish) made indissoluble, and eternal: why should the
earth then, being but a mean member of a greater Creature, be eternal,
and yet the bodies of earthly creatures (God willing the one as well as
the other) may not beeternal? Aye, but, say they, earth must be returned
unto earth, whence the bodies of earthly creatures are shapen, and
therefore (say they) these must necessarily be dissolved, and die, to be
restored to the eternal earth from whence they were taken. Well, if one
should affirm the same of the fire, and say that all the bodies taken
thence, should be restored unto it again, as the heavenly bodies, thereof
consisting, were not that promise of immortality, that Plato said God
made unto those gods, utterly broken by this position? Or can it not
be so, because it pleases not God, whose will, as Plato says, is beyond
all other assurance? why may not God then have so resolved of the
terrene bodies, that being brought forth, they should perish no more,
once composed, they should be dissolved no more, nor that which is
once taken from the elements should ever be restored? and that the
souls being once placed, the bodies should never forsake them, but
enjoy eternal happiness in this combination? why does not Plato con-
fess that God can do this? why cannot He preserve earthly things from
corruption? Is His power as the Platonists, or rather as the Christians
avouch? A likely matter! the philosophers know God’s counsels, but
not the prophets! nay rather it was thus, their Spirit of truth revealed
what God permitted unto the prophets: but the weakness of conjecture
in these questions wholly deluded the philosophers. But they should

Of the City of God. 13

not have been so far besotted in obstinate ignorance as to contradict
themselves in public assertions, saying first that the soul cannot be
blessed unless it abandons all body, whatsoever, and by-and-by after
that the gods have blessed souls, and yet are continually tied unto
celestial and fiery bodies: and as for Jupiter’s (the world’s) soul, that is
eternally inherent in the four elements composing this universe. For
Plato holds it to be diffused, from the midst of earth, geometrically
called the centre, unto the extremest parts of heaven through all the
parts of the world by mystical numbers: making the world, a blessed
creature, whose soul enjoys full happiness of wisdom and yet leaves
not the body ,and whose body lives eternally by it, and as though it
consist of so many different parts, yet can neither dull it nor hinder it.
Seeing then that they give their conjectures this scope, why will they not
believe that God has power to eternise mortal bodies, wherein the
souls without being parted from them by death, or being burdened by
them at all in life, may live most in blessed eternity, as they say their
gods do in fiery bodies, and their Jupiter in all the four elements? If
the souls cannot be blessed without the bodies be quite forsaken, why
then let their gods get them out of the stars, let Jupiter pack out of the
elements : if they cannot go, then are they wretched. But they will
allow neither of these: they dare not aver that the gods may leave their
bodies, lest they should seem to worship mortals: neither dare they bar
them of bliss, lest they should confess them wretches. Wherefore all
bodies are not impediments to beatitude, but only the corruptible, transi-
tory and mortal ones: not such as God made man at first, but such
as his sin procured him afterwards.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Of the terrene bodies which the philosophers hold, cannot be in heaven,
but must fall to earth by their natural weight.

Ou but, they say, an earthly body is either kept on earth, or carried to
earth by the natural weight, and therefore cannot be in heaven. The
first men indeed were in a woody and fruitful land, which was called
Paradise. But because we must resolve this doubt, seeing that both
Christ’s body is already ascended, and that the saints at the resurrection
shall do so also, let us ponder these earthly weights a little. If man’s
art, of a metal that being put into the water, sinks, can yet frame a
vessel, that shall swim, how much more credible is it for God’s secret
power, whose omnipotent will, as Plato says, can both keep things pro-
duced, from perishing, and parts combined from dissolving (whereas the
combination of corporeal and incorporeal is a stranger and harder opera-
tion than that of corporeals with corporeals), to take all weight from
earthly things, whereby they are carried downwards, and to qualify the
bodies of the blessed souls so, as though they be terrene, yet they may

14 St Augustine.

be incorruptible, and apt to ascend, descend, or use what motion they
will, with all celerity. Or, if the angels can transport bodily weights
whither they please, must we think they do it with toil, and feeling of
the burden? Why then may we not believe that the perfect spirits of
the blessed can carry their bodies whither they please, and place them
where they please? for whereas in our bodily carriage of earthly things,
we feel, that the larger it is, the heavier it is, and the heavier, the
more toilsome to bear: it is not so with the soul: the soul carries the
bodily members better when they are big, and strong, than when they
are small, and meagre ; and whereas a big sound man is heavier to others’
shoulders, than a lean sick man, yet will he move his healthful heaviness
with far more agility than the other can do his crazy lightness, or than
he can himself if famine or sickness have shaken off his flesh. This
power hath good temperature more than great weight in our mortal,
earthly and corruptible bodies. And who can describe the infinite
difference between our present health, and our future immortality? Let
not the philosophers therefore oppose us with any corporeal weight or
earthly ponderosity. I will not ask them why an earthly body may not
be in heaven as well as the whole earth may hang alone without any sup-
portation: for perhaps they will withdraw their disputation to the centre
of the world unto which all heavy things do tend. But this I say, that
if the lesser gods (whose work Plato makes man and all other living
things with him) could take away the quality of burning from the fire,
and leave it the light, which the eye transfuses: shall we then doubt
that that God, unto whose will he ascribes their immortality, the eternal
coherence and indissolubility of those strange and divers combinations
of corporeals and incorporeals, can give a man a nature that shall make
him live incorruptible, and immortal, keeping the form of him, and
avoiding the weight? But of the faith of the resurrection, and the
quality of the immortal bodies, more exactly (God willing) in the end of
the work.

CHAPTER XIX.

Against those that hold that man would not have been immortal if he had
not sinned.

Bur now let us proceed with the bodies of the first men, who if they
had not sinned, had never tasted of that death which we say is good
only to the good: being, as all men know, a separation of soul and
body, wherein the body of the creature that had evident life, has evident
end. For although we may not doubt, that the souls of the faithful that
are dead, are in rest: yet it were so much better for them to live with
their bodies in good state, that they that hold it most blessed to want a
body, may see themselves convinced herein directly. For no man dare
compare those wise men, that have either left their bodies, or are to
leave them, unto the zmmorial gods to whom the great God promised

Of the City of God. 18

perpetuity of bliss, and inherence in their bodies. And Plato thought
it the greatest blessing man could have, to be taken out of the body
(after a course virtuously run) and placed in the bosoms of those gods,
that are never to leave their bodies.
“Scilicet immemores supra ut convexa revisant,
Rursus et incipiant in corpora velle reverti.”
‘The thought of heaven is quite out of their brain,
Now can they wish to live on earth again.’

Which Virgil is commended for, speaking after Plato. So that he
holds, that the souls of men can neither be always in their bodies, but
must needs be loosed from them: nor can they be always without
their bodies, but must be forced successively, now to live, and now to
die, putting this difference, that wise men when they die are carried up
to the stars, and every one stays a while in a star fit for him, thence to
return again to misery, in time: and to follow the desire of being em-
bodied again, and so to live again in earthly calamity, but your souls
are bestowed after their deaths in other bodies, of men or beasts,
according to their merits. In this hard and wretched case places he
the wisest souls, who have no other bodies given them, to be happy in,
but such as they can neither be eternally within, nor eternally abandon.
Of this platonism, Porphyry (as I said elsewhere) was ashamed because
of the Christian times, excluding the souls not only from the bodies of
beasts, and from that revolution, but affirming them (if they lived wisely)
to be set free from their bodies, so that they should never more be in-
corporate, but live in eternal bliss with the Father. Wherefore lest he
should seem in this point to be exceeded by the Christians that pro-
mised the saints eternal life, the same does he give to the purified souls:
and yet, to contradict Christ, he denies the resurrection of their bodies
in incorruptibility ; and places the soul in bliss without any body at all.
Yet did he never teach that these souls should be subject unto the in-
corporated gods in matter of religion. Why so? because he did not
think them better than the gods, though they had no bodies. Where-
fore if they dare not (as I think they dare not) prefer human souls before
their most blessed though corporeal gods, why do they think it absurd for
Christianity to teach that our first parents, had they not sinned, had been
immortal, this being the reward of their true obedience? and that the
saints at the resurrection shall have the same bodies that they laboured
in here, but so, that they shall be light, and incorruptible as their bliss
shall be perfect and unchangeable.

CHAPTER XX.
That the bodies of the saints now resting in hope, shall become better than
our first father’s was.
Tue death that severs the souls of the saints from their bodies is not
troublesome unto them, because their bodies do rest in hope, and there.

16 St Augustine.

fore they seemed insensible to all reproach here upon earth. For they
do not (as Plato will have men to do) desire to forget their bodies, but
rather, remembering what the Truth that deceives no one, said unto them,
“That they should not lose an hair of their head,” they desire and
wait for the resurrection of their bodies wherein they suffered such pains
and are never to suffer more. For if they hated not their flesh when
they were fain to bind it from rebelling by the law of the Spirit, how
much shall they love it, becoming holy spiritual? for if we may justly
call the spirit serving the flesh, carnal, then so may we call the flesh
serving the spirit, spiritual, not because it shall be turned into the spirit
(as some think, because it is written: “ It is sown a natural body, but it -
is raised a spiritual body”): but because it shall serve the spirit in all
wonderful, and ready obeisance, to the fulfilling of most secure will of
indissoluble immortality, all sense of trouble, heaviness, and corrupti-
bility being quite taken from it. For it shall not be so bad, as it is now
in our best health: nor as it was in our first parents before sin ; for
they (though they had not died except they sinned) were fain to eat
corporal meat as men do now: having earthly, and not spiritual, bodies:
and though they would never have grown old and so have died (the
tree of life that stood in the midst of Paradise, unlawful for them to
taste of, affording them this estate by God’s grace), yet they ate of more
trees than that one: (which was forbidden them, because it was bad only
for their instruction in pure and simple obedience, which is a great
virtue in a reasonable creature placed under God the Creator, for
though a man touched no evil, yet in touching that which was forbidden
him, the very act was the sin of disobedience) they lived therefore on
other fruits, and ate, lest their carnal bodies should have been troubled
by hunger, or thirst : but the taste of the tree of life was given them, to
confirm them against death, and weakness by age, the rest serving them
for nutriment, and this one for a sacrament: the tree of life in the
earthly Paradise, being as the wisdom of God is in the heavenly, where-
of it is written: “It is a tree of life to them that embrace it.”

CHAPTER XXI.

Of the Paradise wherein our first parents were placed, that it may be taken
spirttually also without any wrong to the truth of the history, as
touching the real place.

WHEREUPON some referred that Paradise wherein the first man was
placed, as the Scripture records, all unto a spiritual meaning, taking
the trees to be virtues, as if there were no such visible things, but only
that they were writ to signify things intelligible. As if there were
not a real Paradise, because we may understand a spiritual one: as if
there were not two such women as Hagar and Sarah, and two sons of
Abraham by them, the one being a bond-woman and the other free,

Of the City of God. 17

because the apostle says that they signified the two covenants: or as
if the rock gushed not forth in water, when Moses smote it, because
that rock may prefigure Christ, the same apostle saying, “the rock was
Christ!” No man denies that the Paradise may be understood as the
bliss of the saints, the four floods, four virtues ; prudence, fortitude,
temperance and justice: the trees, all good disciplines: the tree of life,
wisdom the mother of the rest : the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil, the trial of transgression, for God decreed a punishment for sin, justly,
and well, if man could have made use of it to his own good. These
things may also be understood of the Church, and that in a better
manner, as prophetic tokens of things to come, Paradise may be taken
for the Church, as we read in the Canticles thereof. The four floods
are the four Gospels: the fruitful trees, the saints: their fruits, their
works: the tree of life, the holy of holies, Christ: the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil, free election of will, so that if a man once
forsake God’s will, he can only use himself to his own destruction :
and therefore he learns either to adhere unto the good of all goods,
or to love his own only, for loving himself, he is given to himself, that
being in troubles, sorrows, and fears (and feeling them withal) he may
sing with the psalmist, “My soul is cast down within me:” and being
reformed, “I will wait upon thee, O God, my defence.” These and
such like, may be lawfully understood by Paradise, taken in a spiritual
sense, so that the history of the true and local one be as firmly believed.

CHAPTER XXII.

That the saints bodies after resurrection shall be spiritual, and yet not
changed tnto spirits.
TuE bodies of the saints in the resurrection shall need none of the tree
of life to preserve them in life, health, or strength, nor any meat to keep
away hunger and thirst: they shall have such an every way absolute
immortality, that they shall never need to eat: power they shall have
to do it if they will, but no necessity. For so the angels did appearing
visibly and sensibly, not of necessity, but from power and will to afford
their ministry unto man more conveniently. For we may not think that
when they lodged in men’s houses, they did but eat seemingly : though
they seemed to eat with the same appetite that the men did, who knew
them not to be angels. And therefore the angel says in Tobias, “ You
saw me eat, but you saw it but in vision:” that is, you thought I had
eaten as you did, to refresh my body. But if the other side may be
probably held of the angels, yet verily we doubt it not to be true of
Christ, that He in His spiritual flesh after His resurrection (yet was it
His true flesh) ate and drank with His disciples: the need only, not
the power, is taken from those glorified bodies which are spiritual, not
because they cease to be bodies, but because they subsist by the
quickening of the Spirit.
B

18 St Augustine.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Of bodies animate and spiritual, these dying in Adam, and those being
guickened in Christ.

For as the bodies that have a living soul (though as yet unquickened
by the Spirit) are called animate, yet are our souls but bodies: so are
the other called spiritual: yet God forbid we should believe them to be
spirit, or other than substantial fleshly bodies, yet incorruptible, and
without weight, by the quickening of the Spirit. For man shall not
then be earthly but celestial, not that he shall leave his earthly body,
but because he shall be so endowed from heaven, that he may inhabit
it with loss of his nature, only by attaining a celestial quality. The
first man was made earth of earth, into a living creature, but not into a
quickening spirit: as he would have been, had he persevered in obe-
dience. Doubtless therefore, his body needing meat and drink against
hunger and thirst, and being not kept in youth, and from death by in-
dissoluble immortality, but only by the “ tree of life,” was not spiritual,
but only animate: yet would it not have died, unless it had incurred
God’s heavy sentence by offending. And though he might take of other
meats out of Paradise, yet had he been forbidden to touch the “tree of
life,” he would have been liable to time and corruption, in that life
only ; which had he continued in spiritual obedience, though it were
but merely animate, might have been eternal in Paradise. Wherefore
though by these words of God, “ Whensoever you eat thereof you shall
die the death ;” we understand by death, the separation of soul and
body, yet ought it not to seem absurd, in that they died not the very day
that they took this deadly meat, for that very day their nature was de-
praved, and by their just exclusion from the tree of life, the necessity
of death entered upon them, wherein we all are brought forth. And
therefore the apostle says not: The body shall die for sin, but “ The
body is dead because of sin, and the spirit is life for righteousness’ sake.”
And then he adds: “But if the Spirit of Him that raises up Jesus
from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead,
shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit dwelling in you.”
Therefore then as the apostle says shall it be in quickening of the spirit,
which is now in the life of soul, and yet dead, because it must neces-
sarily die. But in the first man, it was in life of soul, and not in
quickening of spirit, yet could it not be called dead, because had not
he broken the commandment, he had not been bound to death. But
whereas God signified the death of the soul in leaving of Him, saying,
‘* Adam, where art thou ?” and in saying, “ Dust thou art, and unto dust
shalt thou return,” signified the death of the body in leaving of the soul,
therefore we must think He spoke not of the second death, reserving that
secret because of His New Testament, where it is plainly discovered:
that the first which is common to all, might be shewn to proceed from

Of the City of God. 19

that sin, which one man’s act made common to all: but that the second
death is not common to all, because of those holy only whom He has
foreknown and predestinated (as the apostle says), “to be made like
the image of His Son, that He might be the First-born of many brethren,
whom the grace of God by this Mediator had saved from the second death.”

Therefore the first man’s body was but animate, as the apostle wit-
nesses, who desiring our animate bodies now, from those spiritual
ones, that they shall become in the resurrection: “It is sown in cor-
ruption,” says he, “but is raised in incorruption: it is sown in
dishonour, it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness, it is raised
in power: it is sown a natural body, but shall arise a spiritual
body.” And then to prove this, he proceeds: “for if there be a
natural (or animated) body, there is also a spiritual body.” And to
show what a natural body is, he says: “ The first man, Adam, was made
a living soul.” Thus then shewed he what a natural body is, though
the Scripture do not say of the first man, Adam, when God breathed in
his face the breath of life, that man became a living body, but man
became a living soul. The first man was made a living soul, says the
apostle, meaning a natural body. But how the spiritual body is to be
taken, he shews also, adding, but the last man, a quickening spirit :
meaning Christ assuredly, who rose from death to die no more. Then
he continues, saying: “‘ That was not first made which is spiritual, but
that which is natural, and afterward that which is spiritual.” Here he
shews most plainly that he did mean by the living soul, the natural body,
and the spiritual, by the quickening spirit. For the natural body that
Adam had, was first (though it had not died unless he had sinned),
and such have we now, one nature drawing corruption and necessity of
death, from him, and from his sin: such also did Christ take upon Him
for us: not needfully, but in His power: but the spiritual body is after-
wards: and such had Christ, our Head, in His resurrection, such also
shall we, His members, have in ours. Then does the apostle describe
the difference of the two, thus: “ The first man is of the earth, earthy ;
the second is the Lord from heaven; as the earthy one was, so are all the
earthy: and as the Heavenly One is, such shall all the heavenly ones be.
As we have borne the image of the earthy, so shall we bear the image
of the heavenly.” This the apostle infers from the sacrament of re-
generation, as he says elsewhere: “ All ye that are baptised into Christ
have put on Christ :” which shall then be really performed, when that
which is natural in our birth, shall become spiritual in our resurrection,
that I may use his own words: “for we are saved by hope.” We put
on the image of the earthy man, by the propagation of sin and corrup-
tion, adherent unto our first birth: but we put on that of the Heavenly
Man by grace, pardon, and promise of life eternal, which regeneration
assures us by the mercy only of the Mediator between “ God and man,
the Man Christ Jesus,” whom the angels call the Heavenly Man because

20 St Augustine.

He came from heaven to take upon Him the shape of earthly mortality,
and to shape it into heavenly immortality. He calls the rest, heavenly,
also, because they are made members of Christ by grace, they and
Christ being one, as the members and the head are one body. This he
avers plainly in the chapter aforesaid, “ By man came death, and by
man came also the resurrection from the dead : for as in Adam all die,
even so in Christ shall all be made alive:” and that into a quickening
spirit, that is a spiritual body: not that all that die in Adam shall be-
come members of Christ ; for many more of them shall fall into the
eternal second death: but it is said, all, and all, because as none die
naturally, except in Adam, so none shall rise spiritually except in Christ,
we may not then think that our bodies at the resurrection shall be such
as Adam’s was at the creation, nor that this place, “ As the earthy one
was, so are all the earthy,” is meant of that which was effected by the
transgression : for we may not think that Adam had a spiritual body
ere he fell, and in his fall was made a natural one; he that conceives
it so, gives but little regard to that great Teacher, that says, “ If there
be a natural body, then is there also a spiritual ;” as it is also written,
“the first man Adam was made a living soul,” was this done after sin,
being the first estate of man, from whence the blessed apostle took this
testimony of the law, to shew what a natural body was.

CHAPTER XXIV.

How Goda’s breathing life into Adam, and Christ’s breathing upon His
apostles when He said, “ Receive the Holy Spirit,” are to be understood.
Some therefore do unadvisedly think that God, when He breathed into
his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul, did not then
give him a soul but by the Holy Spirit only quickened a soul that was
in him before. They ground upon Christ’s breathing upon His apostles
after His resurrection and saying, “ Receive the Holy Spirit :” thinking
that this was such another breathing, so that the evangelist might have
said, “they became living souls,” which if he had done it would have
caused us to imagine all reasonable souls dead that are not quickened
by God’s Spirit, though their bodies seem to be alive. But it was not
so when man was made, as the Scripture shews plainly, in these words :
“ And God formed man being dust of the earth :” which some thinking
to explain, translate : ““ And God framed man of the loam of the earth,”
because it was said before, a mist went up from the earth and watered
all the earth: that loam should seem to be produced by this mixture of
earth and water, for immediately follows: “And God framed man
being dust of the earth,” as the Greek translations whence our Latin is
do read it: but whether the Greek écAacev, be formed, or framed, it
makes no matter: framed is the more proper word, but they that used
formed thought they avoided ambiguity, because that jimgo in the
Tatin is used commonly for ‘to feign,’ by lying or illuding. This man

Of the City of God. 21

therefore being framed of dust, or loam (for loam is moistened
dust), that this dust of the earth (to speak with the Scripture more
expressly) when it received a soul was made an animate body, the
apostle affirms, saying, ‘‘The man was made a living soul:” that is,
this dust being formed was made a living soul. Aye, say they, but
he had a soul, now, already, otherwise he could not have been
man, being neither soul only, nor body only, but consisting of both.
It is true, the soul is not whole man, but the better part only, nor
the body whole man but the worse part only, and both conjoined
make man, yet when we speak of them disjoined, they lose not that
name: for who may not follow custom, and say, such a man is dead?
such a man is now in joy, or in pain, and speak but of the soul only?
or such a man is in his grave, and mean but the body only? will they
say the Scripture uses no such phrase? yes, it both calls the body and
soul conjoined by the name of man, and also dividing them, calls the
soul the inward man, and the body the outward, as if they were two
men, and not both composing one.

And mark in what respect man is called God’s image, and man of
earth, returning to earth: the first is in respect of the reasonable soul
which God breathed, or inspired into man, that is, into man’s body;
and the latter is in respect of the body which God made of the dust,
and gave it a soul, whereby it became a living body, that is, man became
a living soul : and therefore whereas Christ breathing upon His apostles,
said, ‘‘ Receive the Holy Spirit:” this was to shew that the Spirit was
His, as well as the Father’s, for the Spirit is the Father’s, and the Son’s,
making up the Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, being no
creature, but a Creator. That breath which was carnally breathed, was
not the substantial nature of the Holy Spirit, but rather a signification
(as I said) of the Son’s communication of the Spirit with His Father, it
being not particular to either, but common to both. The Scriptures in
Greek calls it always vetwa, as the Lord called it here, when by signify-
ing it with His breath, He gave it to His disciples: and I never read
it otherwise called in any place of God’s book. But here, whereas it is
said that God formed man being dust of the earth, and breathed into
his nostrils the Spirit (or breath) of life: the Greek is not wvedua, but
avon: which word is read oftener for the creature than the Creator : and
therefore some Latinists (for difference sake) do not interpret this word
xvon, spirit, but breath, for so it is in Isaiah, where God saith “I have
made all breath: ” meaning doubtless, every soul. Therefore that which
the Greeks call zvo) we do sometimes call breath, sometime spirit, some-
times inspiration, and aspiration, and sometimes soul: but wvsdua, never
but spirit, either of man, as the apostle says, “What man knoweth the
things of a man but the spirit of a man which is in him:” or of a beast,
as we read in the preacher: ‘‘ Who knoweth whether the spirit of man
ascendeth upwards, and the spirit of the beast downwards to the

22 St Augustine,

earth? or that bodily spirit which we call wind,” as the Psalm says,
“fire, hail, snow, ice, and stormy winds:” or of no creature, but the
Creator Himself: whereof our Saviour said in the Gospel: “ Receive
the Holy Spirit:” signifying it in His bodily breath: and there also
where He says, “ Go and baptise all nations in the name of the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Ghost,” plainly and excellently intimating the
full Trinity unto us: and there also where we read: “ God is a Spirit,”
and in many other places of Scripture. In all those places of Scripture,
the Greek, we see, hath wvefua, and not wv07, and the Latin flatus, and
not sfiritus. And therefore if in that place “He breathed into his
nostrils the breath of life,” the Greek had not =vo7 (as it hath), but mvet uae:
yet it would not follow that we should take it for the Holy Spirit,
the third person in the Trinity, because aveiwa is used for a creature, as
well as the Creator, and as ordinarily. Oh but (say they) He would not
have added vz/?e, ‘of life,’ unless He had meant that spirit :. and whereas
He said: “ Man became a soul,” He would not have added living, but
that He meant the soul’s life, which is given from above by the Spirit of
God: for the soul having a proper life by itself, why should He add
diving, but to intimate the life given by the Holy Spirit? But what is
this but folly to respect conjecture, and wholly to neglect Scripture? for
what need we go further than one chapter, and behold: “Let the earth
bring forth the living soul:” speaking of the creation of all earthly
creatures. And besides, for five or six chapters only after, why might
they not observe this: “ Everything in whose nostrils the spirit of life
did breathe, whatsoever they were in the dry land, died ;” relating the
destruction of every living thing upon the earth by the deluge? If then
we find a living soul, and a spirit of life in beasts, as the Scripture says
plainly, using 707 and not svetjwa, in this very last place: why may we
not as well say, Why added He Aving there, seeing that a soul cannot
be unless it live? and why added He of 4 here, having named spirit ?
But we understand the Scripture’s ordinary usage of the “ living soul,”
and the “spirit of life,” for animated bodies, natural and sensitive : and
yet forget this usual phrase of Scripture when it comes to be used con-
cerning the state of man: whereas it implies that man received a
reasonable soul of God, created by His breath, not as the other were,
produced out of water and earth, and yet so that it was made in that
body to live therein, and make it an animate body, and a living soul, as
the other creatures were, whereof the Scripture said: “Let the earth
bring forth a living soul:” and that “in whose nostrils was the spirit of
life,” which the Greek text calleth not avevjuc, but zvo7, meaning not the
Holy Spirit, but their life. But we (say they) do conceive God’s breath
to come from the mouth of God; now if that bea soul, we must hold
it equal and consubstantial with that Wisdom, or Word of God, which
says, “I come out of the mouth of the Most High.” Well, it says
not, that it was breathed from His mouth, but came out of it. And as

Of the City of God. 23

we men, not out of our own nature, but of the air about us, can make
a contraction into ourselves, and give it out again in a breath, so
Almighty God, not only out of His own nature, or of any inferior
creature, but even of nothing, can make a breath, which He may be
most fitly said to breathe or inspire into man, it being as He is, incor-
poreal, but not as He is, immutable, because it is created, as He is not.
But to let those men see that will talk of Scriptures, and yet mark
not what they do intend, that something may be said to come forth of
God’s mouth besides that which is equal and consubstantial with him,
let them read or hear God’s own words: ‘“‘ Because thou art lukewarm,
and neither cold nor hot, it will come to pass that I shall spew thee out
of my mouth.” Therefore we have to contradict the apostle’s plainness
in distinguishing the natural body wherein we now are, from the spiritual
wherein we shall be: where he says: “It is sown a natural body, it is
raised a spiritual body.” As it is also written: “ The first man Adam
was made a living soul, and the last Adam, a quickening spirit. The
first was of earth, earthy, the second of heaven, Heavenly: as is the
earthy, such are all the earthy, and as the Heavenly is, such are the
heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, so shall we
bear the image of the Heavenly.” Of all which words we spake before.
Therefore the natural body wherein man was first made, was not made
immortal: but yet was made so that it would not have died, unless
man had offended. But the body that shall be spiritual and immortal
shall never have power to die, as the soul is created immortal, who
though it do in a manner lose the life by losing the Spirit of God, which
should advance it unto beatitude, yet it reserves the proper life, that
is, it lives in misery for ever, for it cannot die wholly. The apostate
angels, after a sort, are dead by sinning : because they forsook God, the
fountain of life, whereat they might have drunk eternal felicity: yet
could they not die, so that their proper life and sense should leave them,
because they were made immortal ; and at the last judgment they shall
be thrown headlong into the second death, yet so as they shall live
therein for ever, in perpetual sense of torture. But the saints (the
angels’ fellow-citizens) belonging to the grace of God, shall be so clothed
upon with spiritual bodies, that from thenceforth they shall neither sin
nor die: becoming so immortal (as the angels are) that sin can never
subvert their eternity ; the nature of flesh shall still be theirs, but quite
extracted from all corruption, unwieldiness, and ponderosity. Now
followeth another question, which (by the true God’s help) we mean to
decide ; and that is this: If the motion of concupiscence arose in the
rebelling members of our first parents immediately upon their trans-
gression, how should they have begotten children, had they remained
as they were created, without prevarication? But this book being fit
for an end, and this question not fit for a too succinct discussion, it is
better to leave it to the next book,

THE
FOURTEENTH BOOK OF THE CITY OF GOD.

——:0:——

CHAPTER I.

That the disobedience of the first man had drawn all mankind into the

perpetuity of the second death, but that God's grace hath Jreed many
Srom it.

WE said in our precedent books that it was God’s pleasure to propa-

gate all men from one, both for the keeping of human nature in
one sociable similitude, and also to make their unity of original be the
means of their concord in heart. Nor would any of this kind have died
had not the first two (the one whereof was made from the other, and
the other from nothing) incurred this punishment by their disobedience :
in committing so great a sin, that their whole nature being hereby
depraved, was so transfused through all their offspring in the same degree
of corruption, and necessity of death ; whose kingdom hereupon became
SO great in man, that all would have been cast headlong in the second
death, that has no end, by this due punishment, had not the undue grace
of God acquitted some from it: whereby it comes to pass, that whereas
mankind is divided into so many nations, distinct in language, discipline,
habit, and fashion: yet are there but two sorts of men that do properly
make the two cities we speak of: the one is, of men that live according
to the flesh, and the other of those that live according to the spirit,
either in his kind: and when they have attained their desire, either
do live in their peculiar peace.

CHAPTER II.
Of the carnal life, apparent in the soul’s victousness as well as the body's

WE must first then see what it is to live according to the flesh, and what
according to the spirit. The rash and inconsiderate considerer hereof,
not attending well to the Scriptures, may think that the Epicureans were
those that lived according to the flesh, because they made bodily pleasure
that swmmum bonum, and all such as any way held corporal delight
to be man’s chiefest good: as the vulgar also, which not out of philo-

Of the City of God. 25

sophy, but out of their own proneness to lust, can delight in no pleasures,
but such as are bodily and sensible: but that the Stoics that placed this
summum bonum in the mind, live according to the spirit (for what is
man’s mind but his spirit?). -But the Scriptures prove them both to
follow the courses of the flesh, calling the flesh not only an earthly ani-
mate body, as it doth, saying, ‘All flesh is not the same flesh ; for there
is one flesh of men, and another flesh of beasts, and another of fishes,
and another of birds:” but it uses the word in far other significations,
amongst which one is, that it calls whole man, that is, his entire nature,
flesh, using the part for the whole: as, “ By the works of the law shall
no man living be justified.” What means he by no flesh, but no man?
He explains himself immediately: ‘‘A man is justified by faith without
the works of the law.” And in another place: “ No man is justified by
the law. The Word was made flesh.” What is that but man? Some
misconceiving this place, held that Christ had no human soul. For as
the part is taken for the whole in these words of Mary Magdalene,
“They have taken away my Lord and I know not where they have laid
Him:” meaning only the flesh of Christ, which she thought they had
taken out of the sepulchre: so is the part taken for the whole, when we
say flesh, for man, as in the quotations before. Seeing therefore that
the Scripture uses flesh in so many significations (too tedious here to
recollect) to find what it is to live according to the flesh (the course
being evil when the flesh is not evil), let us look a little diligently into
that place of the Apostle Paul to the Galatians, where he says, “‘ The
works of the flesh are manifest, which are adultery, fornication, unclean-
ness, wantonness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, debate, emulation, wrath,
contentions, seditions, heresies, envy, drunkenness, gluttony, and such-
like, whereof I tell you now, as I told you before, that they which do
those things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.”

The due consideration of this place of the apostle, will presently
give us sufficient demonstration (as far as here needs) what it is to live
according to the flesh, for in the works of the flesh which he says are
manifest, rehearsing and condemning them, we find not only such as
appertain to bodily and luxurious delight, as fornications, uncleanness,
luxury, and drunkenness, but such also as discover the viciousness of
the mind, truly from fleshly pleasures. For who does not think that
idolatry, witchcraft, enmity, contention, emulation, wrath, envy, sedition,
and heresy, are rather mental vices than corporal? A man may for very
reverence to some idolatrous or heretical error, abstain from the lusts of
the body, and yet though he do so, by the apostle’s words, ‘“ He lives
according to the flesh:” and in avoiding the works thereof, commits
most damnable works thereof. Who has not enmity in his heart ? or
who says to his enemy, or him that he thinks his enemy, you have an
evil flesh against me? Nobody; they say: you have an evil mind
against me, Lastly, as all men that heard those carnal vices recited,

26 St Augustine.

would affirm they were meant of the flesh, so none that hears those
mental crimes, but refers them to the mind? Why then doth this true
and faithful teacher of the Gentiles, call them “The works of the
flesh,” except he takes flesh for man, as the part for the whole?

CHAPTER III.

That sin came from the soul, and not the flesh: and that the corruption
which sin has procured, is not sin, but the punishment of sin.

Ir any man say that the flesh is cause of the viciousness of the soul, he
is ignorant of man’s nature, for the corruptible body does but burden
the soul; therefore the apostle speaking of this corruptible body whereot
he had said before, although our outward man be corrupted: we know
(saith he) “That if our earthly house of habitation be destroyed, we
have a building given of God, an house not made with hands, eternal
in the heavens, for this we sigh, desiring to be clothed with that habi-
tation which we have in heaven. For we that are in this habitation,
sigh, and are burdened, because we would not be unclothed, but clothed
upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.’ We are therefore
burdened with this corruptible body, and yet knowing that it is not the
body’s nature, but corruption, that causes this burden, we would not
be despoiled of it, but be clothed upon it, with the immortality thereof
It shall then be a body still, but burdensome to us no more, because it
is become incorruptible : so then, as yet the corruptible body is heavy
unto the soul and the earthly mansion keeps down the expanding mind.
But yet such as think that the evils of the mind arise from the body, do
err. For though that Virgil seems to express a plain platonism in these
verses—
“ Igneus est ollis vigor et celestis origo,
Seminibus, quamtum non noxia corpora tardant,
Terrenique hebetant artus, moribundaque membra.”
‘ Those seeds have fiery vigour, heavenly spring,
So far as bodies hinder not with fulness,
Or earthly dying members clog with dulness.’

Seeming to derive the four known passions of the mind, desire
fear, joy, and sorrow, as the originals of all guilt, wholly from a
body, by these verses following :

i Hinc metuunt, cupiuntque, dolent, gaudentque, nec auras
Suscipiunt, clausze tenebris et carcere czeco.”

‘ Here hence they fear, desire, displeased, content,
Nor look to heaven, in dark blind prison pent.’

yet our faith teaches us otherwise, For this corruption that is so

Of the City of God. 27

burdensome to the soul, is the punishment of the first sin, not the
cause: the corruptible flesh made not the soul to sin, but the
sinning soul made the flesh corruptible: from which corruption although
there arise some incitements unto sin, and some vicious desires, yet
are not all the sins of an evil life to be laid upon the flesh, otherwise,
we shall make the devil, that has no flesh, sinless: for though we cannot
call him a fornicator, a drunkard, or by any one of those carnally
vicious names (though he be a secret provoker of man unto all those)
yet is he truly styled most proud and envious, which vices have pos-
sessed him so far, as therefore is he destined unto eternal torment in
the prisons of this obscure air. Now those vices that domineer in him
the apostle calls the works of the flesh, though certain it is that he has
no flesh. For he says that enmity, contention, emulation, wrath, and
envy are the works of the flesh: to all which, pride gives being, yet
rules pride in the fleshless devil. For who hates the saints more than
he? Who is more envious, contentious, emulating, and wrathful against
them than he? Doing all this without the flesh, how are these the
works of the flesh, but because they are the works of man, whom as I
said before, the apostle means by flesh? for man became like the
devil not in being in the flesh (for so was not the devil) but in living
according to his own lust, that is, according to the fleshly man: for so
chose the devil to do, when he left the truth, to become a Nar, not
through God, but through himself, who is both a liar, and the father of
lying. For he lied first, and from him sinning and lying had their
beginning.
CHAPTER IV.
What it ts to live according to man, and to live according to God.

THEREFORE a man living according to man, and not according to God,
is like the devil: because an angel indeed should not live according to
an angel, but according to God: to remain in the truth, and speak truth
from Him, and not lies from himself. For the apostle speaks thus of
man: “Ifthe truth of God hath abounded through my lying :” calling
lying his, and the truth of God. Therefore he that lives according to
the truth, lives according unto God, not according to himself. For
God said, “I am the truth.” But he that lives not so, but according
to himself, lives according to lying: not that man (whom God that
never created a lie, did create) is the author of lying, but because man was
created upright, to live according to his Creator and not himself, that is,
to do His will rather than his own. But not to live, as he was made to
live, this is a lie. For he would be blessed, and yet will not live in a
course possible to attain it: what can there be more lying than such a
will? And therefore it is not unfitly said every sin isa lie. For we never
sin except with a desire to do ourselves good, or not to do ourselves hurt.

Therefore is it a lie when that which we think shall do us good turns

28 St Augustine.

unto our hurt: or that which we think to better ourselves by, makes
us worse, whence is this, but because man can only have his good
from God, whom he forsakes in sinning: and none from himself in
living according to whom, he sins? Whereas therefore we said that
the contrariety of the two cities arose hereupon, because some lived
according to the flesh, and others according to the Spirit, we may like-
wise say it is because some live according unto man, and other some
unto God. For Paul says plainly to the Corinthians, “ Seeing there is
emulation and contention amongst you, are ye not carnal, and walk
according to man.” To walk therefore according to man, is carnal,
man being understood in his inferior part, flesh. For those whom he
calls carnal here, he calls natural before, saying: “What man knoweth
the things of a man but the spirit of a man, which is in him? even sO,
no man knoweth the things of God but the Spirit of God. Now we
have not received the Spirit of the Word, but the Spirit which is of God,
that we might know the things that God hath given us, which things
also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but being
taught by the Spirit, comparing spiritual things with spiritual things.
But the natural man perceiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for
they are foolishness unto him.” Unto those natural men he spake this
a little afterwards: “I would not speak unto you brethren as unto
spiritual men, but as unto carnal.” And here is that figure in speech
. that uses the part for the whole to be understood: for the whole man
may either be meant by the soul or by the flesh: both which are his
parts: and so a natural man and a carnal man, are not several, but all
one, namely one that lives according to man: according as those
places afore-cited do intend. “ By the works of the law shall no flesh
be justified: ” and that where it is said that “ Seventy-five souls went
down with Jacob into Egypt,” in the former by flesh, is meant, man, and
in the latter, by seventy-five souls, are meant seventy-five persons. And
in this, not in the words which man’s wisdom teaches, he might have
said: which carnal wisdom teaches: as also, according to the flesh,
for according unto man, if he had pleased. And it was more apparent
in the subsequence: for when one says, “I am of Paul, and another,
Tam of Apollos, are ye not men?” ‘That which he had called natural
and carnal before, he now more expressly calls man: meaning, you

live according to man, and not according to God, whom if you followed

in your lives, you should be made gods of men.

CHAPTER V.

That the Platonists teach the natures of soul and body better than the
Manichees, yet they err in ascribing sin unto the nature Of the flesh.

WE should not therefore wrong our Creator in imputing our vices to
our flesh; the flesh is good, but to leave the Creator and live according

Of the City of God. 29

to this created good, is the mischief: whether a man chooses to live
according to the body or the soul or both, which make full man, who there-
fore may be called by either of them. For he that makes the soul’s
nature, the greatest good, and the body’s the greatest evil, does both
carnally desire the soul, and carnally avoid the flesh: conceiving of both
as human vanity, not as divine verity teaches: though indeed the
Platonists are not so mad as the Manichees, that hate the carnal body,
as the natural cause of all mischief, and yet make God the Creator of all
the elements, parts, and qualities that this visible world is composed of.
Yet the Platonists hold that these, our mortal members, produce the
affects of fear, desire, joy, and sorrow in our bodies: from which four
perturbations (as Tully calls them) or passions (as other translators give
them) the whole inundation of man’s enormities have their source and
spring. If this be so, why does Afneas in Virgil, hearing by his
father that the souls were to return back into the bodies, wonder at this
opinion, and cry out—
“ O pater anne aliquas ad ccelum hinc ire putandum est,
Sublimes animas, iterumque ad tarda reverti
Corpora? que lucis miseris tam dir a cupido?”
§ What, father, do you think the souls are taken

To heaven, and thence, to this dull flesh return.
What dire effect should urge them to their pain ?’

Is this same dire effect as yet remaining in the soul, being now quit
from the carnal burden in such a commended purity! does he not say
they are purged from all bodily infection, when they desire to return
into the body again, if it were so then (as it is most vain to hold so)
that there were an eternal revolution of the pollution, and the purgation,
then can it not be truly said that all vicious desires are the effects of
the flesh : for as this noble speaker says, “that dire effect which doth
compel the soul being purged from all earthly contagion to desire the
body again,” is not of the body. And therefore they confess that all
the soul’s evil affections arise from the flesh: as desire, fear, joy, and
sorrow: but it may have those passions of itself.

CHAPTER VI.

Of the quality of man’s will, unto which all affections, good and bad, are
subject.

But the quality of man’s will is of some moment ; for if it be bad, so
are all those motions ; if good, they are both blameless, and praise-
worthy: for there is a will in them all: nay, they are all direct wills:
what is desire, and joy, but a will consenting to that which we affect:
and what is fear, and sorrow, but a will contrary unto what we like?
But when we consent to the desire of anything, that is desire; and when

30 St Augustine.

we consent in enjoying anything, this is delight. So, when we dislike
a thing, and would not have it come to pass, this will is fear : when we
dislike it being come to pass, this is grief or sorrow. And this accord-
ing to the variety of the things desired and avoided, as the will consents,
or dislikes, so are our diversity of passions. Whereof a man that makes
Ged and not man the steersman of his life, ought to love good: and
consequently to hate evil: and because none is evil by nature, but all
by vice: he that lives after God’s love, owes his full hate unto the
evil: not to hate the man for his vice, nor to love the vice for the man,
but hate the vice and love the man: for the vice being cured, he shall
find no object of his hate, but all for his love.

CHAPTER VII.

That amor, and dilectio, are of indifferent use in the Scriptures both for
good and evil.

For he that is resolved to love God and his neighbour according unto
God and not man: for this love, is called a man of a good will, and this
is called more commonly, charity, in the Scriptures, though sometimes
it be called love therein also. For the apostle will have his magistrate
to be a lover of good. And our Lord asking Peter thus: “Simon
son of Jonas, lovest thou Me more than these,” he answered, ‘‘ Lord,
thou knowest that I love Thee:” He asked him so again, and he
answered so again, then He asked him the third time, by 9/0, ‘ amo,’
whereas he had used dAuraw, ‘diligo, in the other two, only to show,
that diligere and amare were both one, ‘ to love,’ as Peter had used the
one, in all the three questions. This I thought worth recital, but some
say dilectio, ‘ charity,’ is one thing, and amor, ‘love,’ another : and that the
first is used in the good, and the latter in the bad. But sure it is that
the profane authors never used them so. But let the philosophers look to
their distinctions. For their books use amor, ‘love,’ in good senses, and
in reference to God, most frequently. But we were to show that our
Scriptures, which we place far above their authorities, do not use amor
and didectio with any such distinct difference: for we have shown that
they use amor in a good sense. If any one think it is used both in
good respect and bad, and dilectio only in the good, let him look in
that of the Psalm: ‘He that loveth [diligit] iniquity hateth his own
soul :” here is dZjgo, upon a bad subject. And here the Apostle John:
“If any man love [dilexerit] the world, the love [dilectio] of the Father
is not in him.” Behold here dictio in one place, in both the respects.
But if anyone seek to know whether amor be used in evil (we have
shown it in good), let him read this: “Men shall be lovers of them-
selves,” &c. Lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God. For, an
upright will is good love, and a perverse will is bad love. Love then

Of the City of God. 31

desiring to enjoy that it loves is desire: and enjoying it, is joy: flying
what it hates, it is fear; feeling it, it is sorrow.

These are evils if the love be evil: and good if it be good. What we
say let us prove by Scripture. The apostle “ Desires to be dissolved,
and to be with Christ :” and, “ My heart breaketh for the continual
desire I have unto Thy judgments.” Or if this be better: “ My soul
hath coveted to desire Thy judgments,” and, “ Desire of wisdom
leadeth to the kingdom:” yet custom has made it a law, that where
concupiscentia, or cupiditas, is used without addition of the object, it is
ever taken in a bad sense. But joy, or gladness, the Psalm uses well:
“Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, ye righteous,” and, “ Thou hast given
gladness to mine heart,” and, “ In Thy presence is the fulness of joy.”
Fear is also used by the apostle in a good sense: ‘‘ Work out your sal-
vation with fear and trembling :” and, “Be not high-minded, but fear :”
and, ‘‘ But I fear lest as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety,
so that your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in
Christ.” But as for that sorrow (which Tully had rather call egritude,
and Virgil, dolour ; where he says, dolentgue, gaudentque, yet I had
rather call it vistitia, ‘sadness,’ because egritude and dolour are more
often used for bodily desires: the question whether it be used in a
good sense or no, is fit to be more curiously examined.

CHAPTER VIII.

Of the three passions that the Stoics allow a wise man, excluding
sadness, as foe to a virtuous mind.

TuosE which the Greeks call siaadsias, and Tully, “constantiz,” the
Stoics make to be three, according to the three perturbations in a wise
man’s mind, taking will for desire, joy for exultation, and wariness for
fear: but instead of that egritude or dolour which we, to avoid amphi-
bology, call sadness, they deny that a wise mind can entertain anything,
for the will (say they) affects good: which a wise man affects: joy,
concerns the good he has attained, and wariness avoids that he is
to avoid: but seeing sadness arises from an evil cause, already fallen
out (and no evil happens to a wise man), therefore wisdom admits
nothing in place thereof. Therefore (say they) none but wise men can
will, rejoice, and be vigilant, and none but fools can covet, exult, fear,
and be sad. The first are the three constancies (says Tully), and the
latter the four perturbations. The Greeks, as I said, call the three edrrudefat,
and these four rééy. In seeking the correspondency of this, with the
phrase of holy writ, I found this of the prophet: ‘‘There is no joy
(saith the Lord) unto the wicked,” as if the wicked might rather exult,
than have joy, in their mischiefs, for joy is properly peculiar to the
good and godly, that also in the Gospel: “ Whatsoever ye would that

32 St Augustine.

men should do unto you, even so do ye to them:” this seems to
intimate that a man cannot will any evil thing but covet it: by reason
of which custom of interpretation, some translators added good, “ What
good soever,” &c., for they thought it fit for man to desire that men
should do them no dishonesty, and therefore put in this, lest some
should think that in their luxurious banquets (to be silent in more
obscene matters) they should fulfil this precept, in doing to others as
others do unto them. But “good” is not in the original Greek, but
only, as we read before : “ Whatsoever ye would,” &c., for in saying “‘ ye
would,” he means “good.” He said not, “ whatsoever you covet,” yet must
we not always tie our phrases to this strictness, but take leave at needful
occasions, and when we read those that we may not resist, we must con-
ceive them so, that the true sense have no other passage, as, for example
sake, in the said places of the prophet and the apostle, who knows not
that the wicked exult in pleasure? and yet there is no joy (says the
Lord) to the wicked. Why? because joy is properly and strictly used
in this place. So may some say that precept, “‘ Whatsoever you would ”
&c., is not well delivered : they may pollute one another with unclean-
ness, or so. Notwithstanding, the command is well given : and is a most
true and healthful one. Why? because will, which properly cannot be
used in evil, is put in the most proper signification in this place. But
as for ordinary usage of speech, we would not say, ‘‘ Have no will to
tell any lie:” but that there is a bad will also, distinct from that which
the angels praised, saying: “ Peace on earth to men of goodwill.” Good
were here superfluous, if that there were no will but good, and how
coldly had the apostle praised charity, in saying “That it rejoiceth not
in iniquity, but that envy rejoiceth therein:” for the pagan authors do
use these differences. ‘I desire,” says Tully, “ Father’s conscript, I
desire to be merciful.” Here he uses cugzo in a good sense, and who is
SO perverse to say he should have used volo rather? And Terence’s
. lascivious youth: “I would have none but Philumena,” says he. That
this will was lust, his ancient servant’s answer declares, saying to his
master: “ How much better were it for you, to cast this love out of
your heart, rather than seek to inflame it more therein! ” That they
used joy in an evil sense, Virgil’s verse of the four perturbations records—

“Hinc metuunt, cupiuntque, dolent, gaudentque.”
‘ Here hence they fear, desire, displeased, content.’

And the same author in another place says—
“Mala mentis gaudia.”
‘ The mind’s bad joys,’

So then both good and evil do will, desire, are vigilant and rejoice; and
to rehearse them in other terms, the good and bad, do wish, fear, and
are joyful: surely those do it well, and these badly according as their’

Of the City of God. 33

wills are. And that sadness, for which the Stoics can afford a wise man
just nothing, is apparent in good men, especially of our profession. For
the apostle praises the Corinthians for that they sorrowed after a godly
manner. Aye, but (some may say) the apostle congratulates their sorrow

_ Inrepentance, and that is proper to none but sinners : for his words run

thus—

“ For I perceive that the same epistle hath made you sorry though it
were but for a season. Now I rejoice not that ye were made sorry but
that ye sorrowed to repentance: for ye were made sorry after a godly
manner, so that in nothing you were hurt by us. For godly sorrow
causeth repentance unto salvation, not to be repented of: but the
worldly sorrow causeth death: for behold this godly sorrow, what care-
fulness it hath wrought in you.” Verily the Stoics may answer for
themselves, that this sorrow seemed useful unto their repentance, but it
cannot be in a wise man because he cannot do an act sinful or worthy
of repentance, nor can admit anything that should produce sadness in
him. For they say that Alcibiades (if I have not forgotten the man’s
name) thinking himself happy, and Socrates disputing against it and
proving him miserable, because he was not wise, fell a-weeping. So here
was his want of wisdom cause of this good sorrow, whereby he grieved
that he was not as he should be; but a wise man (say the Stoics) can
never have this sorrow.

CHAPTER IX.
Of the perturbations of mind which the righteous moderate, and rule aright.

BuT concerning these questions of perturbations, the philosophers are
already answered in the ninth book, in which we shew that their con-
tention is rather verbal than real. But according to our religion and the
scriptures, the citizens of God, as long as they are pilgrims, and in the
way of God, do fear, desire, rejoice and sorrow. But their love being
right, straightens all those affections. They fear eternal pain, and desire
eternal joy: they sorrow for the present, because as yet they sigh in
themselves, waiting for their adoption, even the redemption of their

bodies: they rejoice in hope, because that shall be fulfilled which is

written: “ Death is swallowed up in victory.” They fear to offend,
and desire to persevere: they sorrow for sin, and rejoice in doing good :
they fear to sin, because, “ for that iniquity shall be increased, the love
of many shall wax cold:” they desire to persevere, because, “ He that
endureth to the end shall be saved:” they sorrow for sin, because, ‘If
we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not
in us:” they rejoice in good works, for “God loveth a cheerful giver.”
And as they are strong or weak, so do they desire, or fear to be tempted :
rejoicing, or sorrowing in temptations: they fear to be tempted, for “If
any man fall into a fault by any occasion, ye which are spiritual, restore

IL Le

34 St Augustine.

such an one in the spirit of meekness, considering thyself, lest thou
also be tempted :” they desire to be tempted, for, ‘‘ Prove me, O Lord,
and try me, examine my reins and mine heart,” said David : they
sorrow in temptations, for they hear how Peter wept: they rejoice in
them, for, ‘Brethren, count it exceeding joy when ye fall into divers
temptations,” says James.

And they do not feel affections for themselves only, but for others also,
whom they desire should be freed, and fear lest they perish, sorrowing
at their fall and rejoicing at their deliverance: for if we that are come
from paganism to Christianity may give an especial instance in that
worthy and dauntless man that boasted of his infirmities, that teacher
of faith and truth to the nations, that toiler above all his fellow apostles,
that edifier of God’s people by sermons, being present, and by more
epistles than they all, being absent, that blessed man Paul (I mean
Christ’s champion) taught by Him, anointed from Him, crucified with
Him, glorified in Him, in the theatre of this world where he was made
a spectacle, to God, angels, and men, fighting a lawful and great fight,
and “ following hard towards the mark for the prize of the high calling :”
how gladly do we with the eyes of faith behold him, “ weep with them
that weep, and rejoice with them that rejoice,” fightings without, and
fears within, “longing to depart and to be with Christ,” desiring to
see the Romans, and to receive fruit from them as well as the others,
being jealous over the Corinthians, and fearing lest their minds should
be corrupted, ‘‘from the chastity which is in Christ,” having great
sadness, and continual sorrow of heart for Israel, that being ignorant
of God’s righteousness, would establish their own, and not be subject
unto God: and bitterly grieving that divers had not repented them
of their fornication and uncleanness. If these affections, arising from
the love of good, be vicious, then let true vices be called virtues: but
seeing their use is levelled by the rule of reason, who dare call them
frail or imperfect passions of the mind? Our Lord Himself, living in
the form of a servant (yet without sin), exercised them when He thought
it requisite: for we may not think that having man’s essential body
and soul, He had but seeming affections.

And therefore His sorrow for Jerusalem’s hardness of heart, His joy
for the believers, His tears for Lazarus, His desire to eat the passover
with His disciples, and His deadly heaviness of soul upon the approach
of His passion, these are no feigned narrations.

But these affections of man He felt when it pleased Him, as He was
made man when it pleased Him. Wherefore we confess that those
affections, in their best kind, are but pertinent to this present life, not unto
that which we hope for hereafter: and that we are often over-pressed
by them : a laudable desire or charity may move us: yet shall we weep
whether we will or no. For we have them by our human infirmity, but
so had not Christ, for He had His very infirmity itself from His own

Of the City of God. 35

power. But as long as we live in this infirmity, we shall live worse if
we want those emotions. For the Apostle dispraises and detests such
as want natural affection. And so does the Psalmist, saying, “I looked
for some to pity me, and there was none.” For to want the sense of
sorrow in this mortal life (as a great scholar held) never befalls a man
without great stupidity of body and barbarism of mind. Therefore the
Greek a&raéeia, or impassibility, being meant of the mind, and not the
body, if it be understood:as a want of those perturbations only which
disturb the mind and resist reason, it is to be defended and desired.
For the godly wise and holy men (not ordinary wranglers) say all
directly, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and
the truth is not in us.” But if a man had this same dwdéera (meant as
before), he had no sin indeed in him. But it is well if we can live
here without crime: but he that thinks he lives without sin does not
avoid sin but rather excludes all pardon. But now if drddéem be an
utter abandoning of all mental affections whatsoever, who will not say
such a stupidity is not worse than sin? We may fitly say indeed that
true happiness shall be utterly void of fear and sorrow : but who can say
it shall be void of love and joy, but he that professes to oppose the
truth? but if this adem be a freedom from fear and sorrow, we must
not aim at it in this life, if we mean to live after the law of God. But
in the other promised life of eternity all fear shall be excluded from us.
For that fear whereof the Apostle John says, “‘ There is no fear in love,
but perfect love casteth out fear, and he that feareth is not perfect in
love,” is not that kind of fear whereof the Apostle Paul feared the fall
of the Corinthians, for love has this fear in it, and nothing has it but
love: but the other fear is not in love, whereof the same Apostle Paul
says, ‘For ye have not received the spirit of bondage to fear again.”
But that chaste fear, remaining world without end, if it be in the world
to come (and how else can it remain world without end?), shall be no
fear terrifying us from evil, but a fear keeping us in an inseparable
good. For where the good attained is unchangeably loved, there is
the fear to lose it inseparably chained. For by this chaste fear is
meant the will that we must necessarily have to avoid sin: not with an
ungrounded carefulness lest we should sin, but being founded in the
peace of love, to beware of sin. But if that firm and eternal security
be acquit of all fear, and conceive only the fulness of joy, then the saying
that the fear of the Lord is clean, and endureth for ever, is meant as that
other place is, ‘‘ The patience of the afflicted shall not perish for ever.”
Their patience shall not be eternal, such needs only where miseries
are to be eternally endured. But that which their patience shall attain,
shall be eternal. So it may be that this pure fear is said to remain for
ever, because the scope whereat it aims is everlasting: which being so,
and a good course only leading to beatitude, then has a bad life bad
affections, and a good life good ones, And everlasting blessedness shall

&

36 St Augustine.

have both joy and love, not only right, but firm and unmoving: but
shall be utterly quit of fear and sorrow. Hence is it apparent what
courses God’s citizens ought to run in this earthly pilgrimage, making
the spirit, not the flesh, God, and not humanity the lantern to their
paths: and here also we see their state in their eternal future. But
the city of the impious that sail after the compass of carnality, and in
their most divine matters, reject the truth of God, and rely upon the
instructions of men, is shaken with these affections, as with earthquakes,
and infected with them as with pestilent contagions. And if any of the
citizens seem to curb themselves from these courses, they grow so
impiously proud and vainglorious, that the less their trouble is by these
passions, the greater their disease. And if any of them be so wonder-
fully vain and barbarous as to embrace downright callousness, becom-
ing insensible of all affection, they do rather abjure true manhood than
attain true peace. Roughness does not prove a thing right; nor can
dulness produce solid soundness.

CHAPTER X,

- Whether man had those perturbations in Paradise before his fall.

Bur it is a fair question whether our first parent, or parents (for they
were two in marriage) had those natural affections ere they sinned, which
we shall be acquitted of when we are perfectly purified. If they had
them, how had they that memorable bliss of Paradise? who can be
directly happy that either fears or sorrows? and how could they either
fear or grieve in that copious affluence of bliss, where they were out of
the danger of death and sickness, having all things that a good will de-
sired, and wanting all things that might give their happiness just cause
of offence? Their love to God was unmoved, their union sincere, and
. thereupon exceeding delightful, having power to enjoy at full what they
loved. ‘They were in a peaceable avoidance of sin, which tranquillity
kept out all external annoyance. Did they desire (do you think ?) to taste
the forbidden fruit, and yet feared to die? God forbid we should think
this to be where there was no sin, for it were a sin to desire to break God’s
command, and to forbear it rather for fear of punishment than love of
righteousness. God forbid I say that ere that sin was, that should be
verified of the forbidden fruit which Christ saith of a woman: “ Who-
soever looketh after a woman to lust after her hath already committed
adultery with her in his heart.” How happy were our first parents

being troubled with no perturbations of mind nor no sickness of body !
even so happy should all mankind have been if they had not transfused
that misery which their sin incurred, into their posterity : nor any of
their seed had committed an act worthy of condemnation. And this
bliss remaining, until, by the words increase and multiply, the number
of the predestinate were fulfilled, then should a better have been given

Of the City of God. 37

us, namely, that which the angels have, wherein there is an eternal
security from sin and death: and so should the saints have lived then
without tasting of labour, sorrow, and death, as they shall now in the
resurrection, after they have endured them all.

CHAPTER XI.

- The fall of the first man, in whom nature was made good, but can only
be repaired by the Maker.

But God, foreknowing all things, could not but know that man would
fall: therefore we must ground our city upon His prescience and
ordinance, not upon that which we know not, and God has not revealed.
For man’s sin could not disturb God’s decree, nor force Him to change
His resolve : God foreknew and anticipated both, that is, how bad man
(whom He had made) should become, and what good He meant to derive
from him, for all his badness. For though God be said to change His
resolution (as the Scriptures figuratively say that He repented, &c.) yet
this is in respect of man’s hope, or nature’s order, not according to His
own prescience. So then God made man upright, and consequently
well-willed: otherwise he could not have been upright. So that this
good-will was God’s work, man being therewith created. But the evil
will, which was in man before his evil work, was rather a failing from
the work of God to its own works, than any work at all. And therefore

were the works evil, because they were according to themselves, and
not according to God, this evil will being as a tree bearing such bad fruit,
or man himself, in respect of his evil will. Now this evil will, though it
do not follow, but oppose nature, being a fault : yet is it of the same nature
that vice is, which cannot but be in some nature : but it must be in that
nature which God made of nothing, not in that which He has begotten of
Himself, as He begot the Word by Whom all things were made: for al-
though God made man of dust, yet He made dust out of nothing, and He
made the soul out of nothing, which He joined with the body, making full
man. But evils are so far under that which is good, that though they
be permitted to exist to shew what good use God’s provident justice
can make of them, yet may that which is good exist without. them, as
that true and glorious God Himself, and all the visible resplendent
heavens do, above this darkened and misty air of ours: but evils can-
not consist but in that which is good, for all the natures wherein they
abide being considered as mere natures, are good. And evil is drawn
from nature, not by abscission of any nature contrary to this or any
part of this, but by purifying of that only, which was thus depraved.
Then therefore is the will truly free, when it serves neither vice nor
sin. Such God gave us, such we lost, and can only recover by Him that
gaveit: as the truth says: “ If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be
_ free indeed,” it is as if He should say: “If the Son save you, you shall

38 St Augustine.

be truly saved,” for He is the Liberator, that is the Saviour. Wherefore
in Paradise both local and spiritual, man made God his rule to live by,
for it was not a paradise local, for the body’s good, and not spiritual for
the spirit’s : nor was it a spiritual for the spirit’s good, and no local one
for the body’s: no, it was both for both. But after that that proud,
and therefore envious angel, falling through that pride from God unto
himself, and choosing in a tyrannical vainglory rather to rule than be
ruled, fell from the spiritual paradise (of whose fall, and his fellows,
that thereupon of good angels became his, I disputed in my ninth book
as God gave grace and means), he desiring to creep into man’s
mind by his ill-persuading subtlety, and envying man’s constancy
in his own fall, chose the serpent, one of the creatures that
as then lived harmlessly with the man and woman in the earthly
Paradise, a creature slippery, and pliable, wreathed in knots,
and fit for his work, this he chose to speak through: abusing
it, as subject unto the greater excellency of his angelical nature,
and making it the instrument of his spiritual wickedness, through
it he began to speak deceitfully unto the woman: beginning at the
meaner part of mankind, to invade the whole by degrees: think-
ing the man was not so credulous, nor so soon deluded as he would
be, seeing another so served before him, for as Aaron consented not by
persuasion, but yielded by compulsion unto the Hebrews’ idolatry, to
make them an idol, nor Solomon (as it is thought) yielded worship to
idols of his own erroneous belief, but was brought unto that sacrilege
by his wives’ persuasions: so is it to be thought, that the first man
did not yield to his wife in this transgression of God’s precept, as if he
thought she spoke the truth; but only being compelled to it by this
social love to her, being but one with one, and both of one nature and
kind, for it is not in vain that the apostle says: “Adam was not
.deceived : but the woman was deceived :” but it shews that the woman
did think the serpent’s words were true, but Adam only would not
break company with his partner, were it in sin, and so sinned wittingly :
wherefore the apostle says not, ‘He sinned not :” but, “ He was not
seduced,” for he shews that he sinned, saying: “ By one man sin
entered into the world ;” and a little after more plainly: “after the
manner of the transgression of Adam.” And those he means are
seduced, that think the first to be no sin, which he knew to bea sin,
otherwise why should he say, “‘ Adam was not seduced”? But he that
is not acquainted with the divine severity might therein be deceived
to conceive that his sin was but venial. And therefore while the woman
was seduced, he was not, but this it was that deceived him, that he was
to be judged, for his false excuse: “The woman that Thou gavest me
to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat,” what need we
any more then? though they were not both seduced, they were both
taken in sin and made the devil’s captives.

Cf the City of God. 30

CHAPTER XII.
Of the quality of man’s first offence.

But if the difference of motion to sin, that others have from the first man,
do trouble any one, and that other sins do not alter man’s nature, as that
first transgression did: making him liable to that death, torture of the
affections, and corruption which we all feel now, and he felt not at all,
nor would have felt, if he had not sinned : if this (I say) move any one,
he must not think therefore, that it was a light fault that he committed in
eating of that fruit which was not hurtful at all, but only as it was forbid-
den. For God would not have planted any hurtful thing in that delicious
Paradise. But upon this precept was grounded obedience, the mother
and guardian of all the other virtues of the soul: to which it is good to
be subject, and pernicious to leave (leaving with it the Creator’s will)
and to follow one’s own. This command then of forbearing one fruit
when there were so many besides it, being so easy to observe; and so
short to remember, especially since no lust (a later penalty of transgres-
sion) then opposed the will, was the more wickedly broken, by how
much it was the easier to keep.

CHAPTER XIII.
That in Adam’s offence his evil will was before his evil work,

Bur evil began within them secretly at first, to draw them into open
disobedience afterwards. For there would have been no evil work, but
there was an evil will before it: and what could begin this evil will but
pride, that is the beginning of all sin? And what is pride but a per-
verse desire of height, in forsaking Him to whom the soul ought solely
to cleave, as the beginning thereof, to make the self seem the one begin-
ning. This is when it likes itself too well, or when it so loves itself,
that it will abandon that unchangeable Good which ought to be more
delightful to it than itself. This defect now is voluntary : for if the will
remained firm in the love of that higher and stronger Good which gave
it light to see it, and zeal to love it ; it would not have turned from that,
to take delight in itself, and thereupon have become so blind of sight,
and so cold of zeal that either Eve should have believed the serpent’s
words as true, or Adam should have dared to prefer his wife’s will be-
fore God’s command, and to think that he offended but venially, if he
bare the partner of his life company in her offence. The evil therefore,
that is, this transgression, was not done but by such as were evil before,
such ate the forbidden fruit: there could be no evil fruit, but from an
evil tree, the tree was made evil against nature, for it had not become
evil but by the unnatural viciousness of the will: and no nature can be
depraved by vice, but such as is created of nothing. And therefore in that

40 St Augustine.

it is nature it has it from God: but it falls from God in that it was
made of nothing. Yet man was not made nothing upon his fall, but he
was lessened in excellence by inclining to himself, being most excelling,
in his adherence to God: whom he leaving, to adhere to, and delight
in himself, he grew (not to be nothing, but) towards nothing. There-
fore the scripture called proud men, otherwise, pleasers of themselves.
It is good to have the heart aloft, but not unto one’s self: that is pride:
but unto God, that is obedience, inherent only in the humble.

In humility therefore there is this to be admired, that it elevates the
heart : and in pride this, that it dejects it. This seems strangely con-
trary, that elevation should be below, and dejection aloft. But godly
humility subjects one to his superior: and God is above all; therefore
humility exalts one, in making him God’s subject. But pride the
vice, refusing this subjection, falls from Him that is above all, and so
becomes more base by far (than those that stand) fulfilling this place of
the Psalm: ‘“‘ Thou hast cast them down in their own exaltation.” He
says not when they were exalted, they were dejected afterwards : but, in
their very exaltation were they cast down, their elevation was their ruin,
And therefore in that humility is so approved in, and commended to
the City of God that is yet pilgrim upon earth, and so highly extolled
by Christ the King thereof ; and pride, the just contrary, shewn by Holy
Scripture, to be so predominant in His adversaries the devil and his
angels: in this very thing the great difference of the two Cities, the godly
and the ungodly, with both their angels accordingly, lies most apparent :
God's love swaying in the one, and self-love in the other. So that the
devil had not seduced mankind to such a palpable transgression of
God’s express charge, but that evil will and self-love had got place in
them before, for He delighted in that which was said, ‘Ye shall be as
gods :” which they might sooner have been by obedience and coherence

with their Creator than by proud opinion that they were their own be-
ginners, for the created gods are not gods of themselves but by partici-
pation of the God that made them, but man desiring more, became less,
and choosing to be sufficient in himself, fell from that all-sufficient God.

This then is the mischief, man liking himself as if he were his own
light turned away from the true light, which if he had pleased himself
withal, he might have been like: this mischief (I say) was first in his
soul, and thence was drawn on to the following mischievous act, for the
scripture is true that says, “ Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty
mind before the fall:” the fall which was in secret, foreruns the fail
which was in public, the first being taken for no fall at all, for who takes
exaltation to be ruin, though the defect proved in the place of height ?

But who sees not that ruin lies in the express breach of God’s pre-
cepts? For therefore did God forbid it, that being done, all excuse
and avoidance of justice might be excluded. And theretore T dare say
it is good that the proud should fall into some broad and disgraceful

Of the City of God. “gt

sin thereby to take a dislike of themselves, who fell by too much liking
themselves: for Peter’s sorrowful dislike of himself, when he wept, was
more healthful to his soul than his unsound pleasure that he took in
himself when he presumed. Therefore says the Psalmist: “ Fill their
faces with shame, that they may seek Thy name O Lord:” that is, that
they may delight in Thee and seek Thy name, who before, delighted in
themselves, and sought their own.

CHAPTER XIV.

Of the pride of the transgression, which was worse than the
transgression itself.

But pride that makes man seek to colour his guilt, is far more damnable
than the guilt itself is, as it was in the first of mankind. She could say,
“The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.” He could say: “The
woman Thou gavest me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat:” here
is no sound of asking mercy, no breath of desiring help: for though
they do not deny their guilt, as Cain did, yet their pride seeks to lay
their own evil upon another, the man’s upon the woman, and hers upon
the serpent. But this indeed does rather accuse them of worse than
acquit them of this, so plain and palpable a transgression of God’s com-
mand. For the woman’s persuading of the man, and the serpent’s se-
ducing of the woman to this, no way acquits them of the guilt: as if
there were anything to be believed, or obeyed, before God, or rather
than the Most High.

CHAPTER XV.
Of the just reward that our first parents received for their sin.

THEREFORE because God (that had made man according to His image,
placed him in Paradise above all creatures, had given him plenty of all
things, and laid no hard nor long laws upon him, but only that one brief
command of obedience, to shew that Himself was Lord of that creature
whom free service best befitted) was thus contemned : thereupon followed
that righteous sentence, being such, that man, who might have kept the
command, and been spiritual in body, became now carnal in mind: and
because, he had before delighted in his own pride, now he tasted of
God’s justice: becoming not as he desired, fully in his own power, but
falling even from himself, became his slave that taught him sin, changing
his sweet liberty into wretched bondage, being willingly dead in spirit,
and unwilling to die in the flesh, forsaking eternal life, and condemned
to eternal death, had not God’s good grace delivered him. He that
holds this sentence too severe, cannot truly apportion the guilt incurring
it, and the easiness of avoiding it: for as Abraham’s obedience is highly
extolled, because the killing of his son (an hard matter) was commanded
him, so was their disobedience in Paradise so much the more extreme,

42 St Augustine.

as the precept was easy to perform. And as the obedience of the
second was the more rarely excellent, in that he kept it unto the death:
so was that disobedience of the first man the more truly detestable,
because he brake his obedience to incur death: for where the punish-
ment of the breach of obedience is so great, and the precept so easily
kept, who can fully relate the guilt of that sin that breaks it, standing
neither in awe of the commander’s majesty, nor in fear of the terrible
affliction following the breach ?

And in one word, what reward, what punishment is laid, upon dis-
obediency, but disobedience? What is man’s misery, other than his
own disobedience to himself: that seeing he would not what he might,
now he cannot what he would? for although in Paradise all was not in
his power during his obedience, yet then he desired nothing but what
was in his power, and so did what he would.

But now, as the Scripture says, and we see by experience, “Man is
like to vanity,” for who can recount his innumerable desires of impossi-
bilities, the flesh, and the mind, that is himself, disobeying the will, that
is himself also, for his mind is troubled, his flesh pained, age and death
approach, and a thousand other emotions seize on us against our wills,
which they could not do if our nature were wholly obedient unto our will.
And the flesh suffers something, that hinders the service of the/youl,
what does it matter, as long as it is God’s almighty justice, to jandn
we would not be subject, that our flesh should not be subject to thé soul,
but trouble it whereas it was subject wholly unto it before, though we
in not serving God, do trouble ourselves and not Him? for He needs
not our service, as we need our bodies: and therefore it is our pain to
have a body, not any hurt to Him that we have made it such a body.
Besides, those that we call fleshly pains, are the soul’s pains, in, and
from the flesh, for what can the flesh either feel, or desire without the
soul? But when we say the flesh does either, we mean either the man
(as I said before) or some part of the soul that the fleshly passion
affects, either by sharpness, procuring pain and grief, or by sweetness
producing pleasure. But fleshly pain is only an offence given to the soul
by the flesh, and a dislike of that passion that the flesh produces : as
that which we call sadness, is a distaste of things befalling us against
our wills: but fear commonly foreruns sadness, and that is wholly
in the soul, and not in the flesh: but whereas the pain of the flesh is
not forerun by any fleshly fear, felt in the flesh before that pain: pleasure
indeed is ushered in by certain appetites felt in the flesh, as the desires
thereof: such are hunger and thirst and the carnal appetite usually
called lust: whereas lust is a general name to all fleshly desires: for
wrath is nothing but a lust of revenge, as the ancient writers defined it:
although a man sometimes without sense of revenge will be angry at
senseless things, as to break his pen in anger when it writes badly :
but even this is a certain desire of revenge, though it be reasonless, it

Of the City of God. 43

is a certain shadow of rendering evil to them that do evil. So then
wrath is a lust of revenge ; avarice, a lust of having money; obstinacy, a
lust of getting victory ; boasting, a lust of vainglory; and many such
lusts there are: some peculiarly named, and some nameless: for who
can give a fit name to the lust of sovereignty, which notwithstanding
the tyrants show by their intestine wars, that they stand well affected
unto?

CHAPTER XVI.

Of the evil of lust: how the name is general to many vices, but
proper unto venereal concuptscence.

ALTHOUGH, therefore, there be many lusts, yet when we read the word
“lust” alone, without mention of the object, we commonly take it for
the unclean motion of the generative parts. For this sways in the
whole body, moving the whole man without and within, with such a
mixture of mental emotion and carnal appetite, that hence is the
highest bodily pleasure of all produced: so that in the very moment of
consummation, it overwhelms almost all the light and power of cogi-
tation. And what wise and godly man is there, who being married,
and knowing, as the apostle says, “how to possess his vessel in holi-
ness and honour, and not in the lust of concupiscence, as the Gentiles
do, which know not God,” had not rather (if he could) beget his
children without this lust, that his members might obey his mind in
this act of propagation, as well as in the lust, and be ruled by his will,
not compelled by concupiscence? But the lovers of these carnal
delights themselves cannot have this emotion at their wills, either in
nuptial conjunctions, or wicked impurities. The motion will be some-
times importunate against the will, and sometimes immovable when it
is desired ; and being fervent in the mind, yet will be frozen in the body.
Thus wondrously does this lust assail man, both in honest desire of
generation, and in lascivious concupiscence: sometimes resisting the
restraint of the whole mind, and sometimes opposing itself, which being
wholly in the mind, and no way in the body at the same time.

CHAPTER XVII.

Of the nakedness that our first parents discovered in themselves
after their sin.

JustLy is man ashamed of this lust, and justly are those members
(which lust moves or suppresses against our wills, as it lusts) called
shameful. Before man sinned, they were not so: for it is written, “ They
were both naked, and were not ashamed,” not that they saw not the
nakedness, but because their nakedness was not yet shameful: for lust
did not as yet move these parts against their wills; nor was the dis-
obedience of the flesh as yet made a testimony of the disobedience of man.

44 St Augustine.

They were not made blind, as the unenlightened crowd imagine, for the
man saw the creatures whom he named, and the woman saw “ that the
tree was good for meat, and pleasing to the eyes.” Their eyes therefore
were open, but they were not yet opened, that is, occupied, in beholding
what good the garment of grace bestowed upon them, in keeping the
knowledge of the members’ rebellion against the will from them ; which
grace being gone, that disobedience might be punished by disobedience,
there entered a new shame upon those bodily motions that made their
nakedness seem indecent. This they observed, and this they were ashamed
of. Thence it is, that after that they had broken the command, it was
written of them, “And the eyes of them both were opened, and they
knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig-tree-leaves together and
made themselves aprons.” Their eyes were opened, not to see, for
they saw before, but to discern between the good that they had lost
and the evil that they had incurred. And therefore the tree was called
“the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” because if it were tasted of
against the commandment by them, they must perforce see this difference,
for the pain of the disease being known, the pleasure of health is the
sweeter. So they knew that they were naked: naked of that grace that
made their bodily nakedness innocent, and disquieting the will of their
minds. This knowledge they got: happy they, if they had kept God’s
precepts, and believed Him, and never come to know the hurt of
faithless disobedience. But then being ashamed of this fleshly dis-
obedience that upbraided theirs unto God, they sewed fig-tree leaves
together, and made them aprons, or covers for their nakedness. The
Latin word is camfestria, taken from the vestures wherewith the youths
that wrestled or exercised themselves naked in the field (tz campo), did
cover their virile members withal, being therefore called by the vulgar
campestratt. ‘Thus their shamefastness wisely covered that which lust
disobediently incited as a memory of their disobedient wills, justly
herein punished: and from hence all mankind, springing from one
original, have it naturally in them to keep their members covered ; that
even some of the barbarians will not bathe with them bare, but wash them
with their nakedness concealed. And whereas there are some philo-
sophers called Gymnosophists, because they live naked in the dark parts
of India, yet do they cover their virile members, whereas all the rest
of their bodies are bare.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Of the shame that accompanies copulation, as well in
common as in marriage.

Bur the act of lust, not only in punishable adulteries, but even in the use
of harlots which the earthly city allows, is ashamed of the public view,
although the deed be liable unto no pain of law: and houses of ill fame

Of the City of God. 45

themselves have their secret provisions for it, even because of natural
shame: thus was it easier for unchasteness to obtain permission, than for
impudence to give it public practice. Yet such as are filthy themselves,
will call this filthiness, and though they love it, yet dare not profess it,
But now for copulation in marriage, which according to the laws of
matrimony, must be used for propagation’s sake: does it not seek a
corner for performance, though it be honest, and lawful? Does not the
bridegroom turn all the feast-masters, the attendants, the music, and
all other out of his chamber, before he begins to embrace his bride?
And as that great author of Roman eloquence said, whereas all honest
deeds desire the light, that is, love to be known: this only desires so to
be known, that it shames to be seen. For who knows not what the
man must do to the woman to have a child begotten, seeing the wife is
solemnly married for this end? But when this is done, the children
themselves, if they have any before, shall not know. For this act does
desire the sight of the mind, yet so as it flies the view of the eye: why,
unless this lawful act of nature, is (from our first parents) accompanied
with our penal shame?

CHAPTER XIX.

That the motions of wrath and lust are so violent that they do necessarily
require to be suppressed by wisdom: and that they were not in our
nature, before our fall depraved it.

HEREUPON the most acute and judicious philosophers held wrath and
lust to be two vicious parts of the mind: because they moved man
without all order and measure to acts uncondemned by wisdom, and
therefore needed to be overswayed by judgment and reason: which
third part, of the soul, they placed as in a tower, to be sovereign over
the rest, that this commanding, and they obeying, the harmony of
justice might be fully kept in man. These parts which they confess to
be vicious in the most wise and temperate man, so that the mind had
need still to tie them from exorbitance to order: and allow them that
liberty only which wisdom prescribes, as wrath in a just repulse of wrong,
and lust in the propagation of one’s offspring : these I say were not vicious
at all in man whilst he lived sinless in Paradise. For they never aimed
at anything besides rectitude, reason directing them without reins. But
now whensoever they move the just and temperate man, they must be
hampered down by restraint, which some do easily, and others with great
difficulty : they are now no parts of a sound, but pains of a sick, nature.
And whereas shamefastness does not hide wrath, nor other emotions, in
their immoderate acts, as it does lusts: what is the reason except it is
not the emotion but the assuming will that moves the other members,
performing those acts of the emotions, because it rules as chief in their
use? For he that being angry, rails, or strikes, could not do it unless

46 St Augustine.

the tongue and the hand are appointed to do so by the will, which
moves them also when anger is absent ; but in the members of genera-
tion, lust is so peculiarly enfeoffed, that they cannot move, if it be away,
nor stir unless it (being either voluntary, or forcibly excited) do move
them. This is the cause of shame and avoidance of beholders in this
act: and the reason why a man being in unlawful anger with his neigh-
bour, had rather have a thousand look upon him, than one when he is
in carnal copulation with his wife.

CHAPTER XxX.
Of the vain obscenity of the cynics.

Tuis the dogged philosophers, that is, the cynics, observed not, aver-
ring, that truly dogged, impure and shameless sentence against man’s
shamefastness, that the matrimonial act being lawful, is not shame, but
ought, if one lust, to be done in the street. Even very natural shame
subverted this foul error. For though Diogenes is said to have done thus
once, glorying that his impudence would make his sect the more famous :
yet afterwards the cynics left it, and shame prevailed more with them, as
they were men, than that absurd error to become like dogs. And there-
fore I think that he, or those that did so, did rather shew the motions of
persons in copulation unto the beholders that saw not what was done
under the cloak, than that they performed the venereal act in their view
indeed. For the philosophers were not ashamed to make shew of
copulation there, where lust was ashamed to provoke them. We see
there are cynics to this day, wearing cloaks, and bearing clubs, yet none
of them dare do this: if they should, they would have all the street
upon their backs either with stones, or spittle. Questionless therefore
man’s nature is justly ashamed of this act: for that disobedience,
whereby the genital members are taken from the will’s rule and given
to lust’s, is a plain demonstration of the reward that our first father had
for his sin: and that ought to be most apparent in those parts, because
thence is our nature derived which was so depraved by that his first
offence: from which bond none is freed, unless that which was com-
mitted for the ruin of us all (we being then all in one) and is -now
punished by God’s justice, being expiated in every one by the same
grace of God.
CHAPTER XXI.

Of the blessing of fecundity before sin, which the transgression did not
abolish but only linked to lust.

Gop forbid then that we should believe, that our first parents in Para-
dise should have fulfilled that blessing. “Increase and multiply, and
replenish the earth:” in that lust that made them blush and hide their
private parts: this lust was not in them until after sin: and then, their
shamefast nature, having the power and rule of the body, perceived it,

Of the City of God. 47

blushed at it, and concealed it. But that blessing of marriage, for in-
crease, multiplication, and peopling of the earth ; though it remained
in them after sin, yet was it given them before sin to know, that pro-
creation of children belonged to the glory of marriage, and not to the
punishment of sin. But the men that are now on earth, knowing not
that happiness of Paradise, think that children cannot be begotten,
but by this lust which they have tried, this it is that makes honest
marriage ashamed to act it.

Others rejecting and impiously deriding the Holy Scriptures that say
they were ashamed of their nakedness after they had sinned, and
covered their private parts, and others though they receive the Scrip-
tures, yet hold that this blessing, “Increase and multiply,” is meant of
a spiritual, and not a corporeal fecundity: because the Psalm says,
“Thou shalt multiply me with strength in my soul,” and interpret the
following words of Genesis, “ And replenish the earth and subdue it,”
thus: earth, that is, the flesh, which the soul fills with the presence,
and rules over it, when it is multiplied in virtue: but that the carnal
propagation cannot be performed without that lust which arose in man,
was discovered by him, shamed him, and made him conceal it, after
sin: and that his progeny were not to live in Paradise, but outside it,
as they did: for they begot no children until they were put forth from
Paradise, and they did first conjoin, and beget them.

CHAPTER XXII.
That God first instituted, and blessed the bond of marriage.

But we doubt not at all that this increase, multiplying, and filling of
the earth, was by God’s goodness bestowed upon the marriage which
He ordained in the beginning, ere man sinned, when He made them
male and female; sexes evident in the flesh. This work was no
sooner done, but it was blessed: for the Scripture having said, “‘ He
created them male, and female,” adds presently: “‘ And God blessed
them, saying, Increase and multiply,” &c. All which though they
may not unfitly be applied spiritually, yet male and female can in no
wise be appropriate to any spiritual thing in man: not unto that which
rules, and that which is ruled: but as it is evident in the real distinc-
tion of sex, they were made male and female, to bring forth fruit by
generation, to multiply and fill the earth. This plain truth none but
fools will oppose. It cannot be meant of the spirit ruling, and the
flesh obeying, of the reason governing and the emotion working : of the
contemplative part excelling, and the active serving, nor of the mind’s
understanding and the body’s sense: but directly, of the bond of
marriage, combining both the sexes in one. Christ being asked,
whether one might put away his wife for any cause, because Moses by
reason of the hardness of their hearts suffered them to give her a bill

48 St Augustine.

of divorce, answered saying, ‘Have ye not read, that He which made
them at the beginning, made them male and female? and said for this
cause shall a man leave his father and mother and cleave unto his wife,
and they twain shall be one flesh?” So that now they are no more two
but one. Let no man therefore sunder what God has coupled to-
gether. Sure it is therefore, that male and female were ordained at the
beginning in the same form and difference that mankind is now in.
And they are called one, either because of their conjunction, or the
woman’s origin, who came out of the side of man: for the apostle warns
all married men, by this example, to love their wives.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Whether if man had not sinned, he would have begotten children in
Paradise, and whether there should there have been any contention
between chastity and lust.

Bur he that says that there should have been neither copulation nor pro-
pagation but for sin, what does he else, but make sin the original of the
holy number of saints? for if they two should have lived alo 1 not
sinning, seeing sin (as these say) was their only mean of gens “tion,
then verily was sin necessary, to make the number of saints me °!than
two. But if it be absurd to hold this, it is fit to hold that, & % the
number of God’s citizens should have been as great, then, if no man
had sinned, as now shall be gathered by God’s grace out of the multi-
tude of sinners, as long as this worldly multiplication of the sons of the
world (men) shall endure. And therefore that marriage that was held
fit to be in Paradise, should have had increase, but no lust, had not sin
been. How this might be, here is no fit place to discuss : but it need
not seem incredible that one member might serve the will without lust
then, so many serving it now. Do we now move our hands and feet
so lazily when we will unto their offices, without resistance, as we see
in ourselves and others, chiefly handicraftsmen, where industry has
made dull nature nimble, and may we not believe that those members
might have served our first father unto procreation, if they had not been
seized with lust, the reward of his disobedience, as well as all his other
served him to other acts? does not Tully, disputing of the difference of
governments (in his treatise Of the Commonwealth), drawing a simile
from man’s nature, say, that they command our bodily members as sons,
they are so obedient, and that we must keep an harder form of rule
over our mind’s vicious parts, as our slaves? In order of nature the
soul is above the body, yet is it harder to rule than the body. But this
lust whereof we speak is the more shameful in this, that the soul does
neither rule itself therein, so that it may not lust ; nor the body neither, so
that the will rather than lust might move these parts, which if it so were
would be nothing to be ashamed of. But now, it feels no shame in other

Of the City of God. 49

rebellious emotions, because when it is conquered of itself, it conquers
itself (although it be inordinately and viciously) for although these parts
be reasonless, that conquer it, yet are their parts of itself, and so as I
say, it is conquered of itself. For when it conquers itself orderly,
and brings all the parts under reason, this is a laudable and virtuous
conquest, if the soul be God’s subject. But it is less ashamed when it
obeys not the vicious parts of itself, than when the body obeys not
it, because it is under it, depends on it, and cannot live without it.
But the other members being all under the will, without which members
nothing can be performed against the will, the chastity is kept un-
violated: but the delight in sin is not permitted. This contention,
fight, and altercation of lust and will, this need of lust to the sufficiency
of the will, had not been laid upon wedlock in Paradise, unless
disobedience should be the plague to the sin of disobedience: other-
wise these members had obeyed their wills as well as the rest. The
seed of generation should have been sown in the vessel, as corn is now
in the field. What I would say more in this kind, modesty bids me
forbear a little, and first ask pardon of chaste ears: I need not do it,
but might proceed in any discourse pertinent to this theme, freely, and
without any fear to be obscene, or imputation of impurity to the words,
being as honestly spoken of these as others are of any other bodily
members. Therefore he that reads this with unchaste suggestions,
let him accuse his own guilt, not the nature of the question: and let him
observe the effect of turpitude in himself, not that of necessity in us:
which the chaste and religious reader will easily allow us to use in con-
futing our experienced (not our credulous) adversary, who draws his
arguments from proof not from belief. For he that abhors not the
apostle’s reprehension of the horrible beastliness of women, who per-
verted natural use, and acted against nature, will read this without
offence, especially seeing we neither rehearse nor reprehend that
damnable bestiality, that he condemns, but are upon discovery of the
emotions of human generation, yet with avoidance of obscene terms, as

well as he avoids them.
CHAPTER XXIV.

That our first parents, had they lived without sin, should have had their
members of generation as subject unto their wills, as any of the rest.

Man therefore would have sown the seed, and woman have received
it, as need required, without all lust, and as their wills desired : for as
now we are, our articulated members do not only obey our will, our
hands, or feet, or so, but even those also that we move, only by small
sinews and tendons, we contract and turn them as we list: as you see in
the voluntary motions of the mouth and face. And the lungs, the softest
of all the entrails except the brain, and therefore placed in the hollow of
the breast for more safety in taking in and giving out the breath, and in
D

50 St Augustine.

proportionating the voice, do serve a man’s will entirely, like a pair of
smith’s, or organ’s, bellows: to breathe, to speak, to cry, orto sing. I
omit that it is natural in some creatures if they feel anything bite them,
to move the skin there where it bites, and nowhere else: shaking off
not only flies, but even darts or shafts by this motion of the skin.
Man cannot do this: what then? could not God give it unto what
creatures he listed? Even so might man have had the obedience of
his lower parts, which his own disobedience debarred. For God could
easily have made him with all his members subjected to his will, even
that which now is not moved but by lust: for we see some men’s
natures far different from others: acting those things strangely in their
bodies, which others can neither do nor hardly will believe. There are
those who can move their ears, one or both, as they please: there are
those that can move all their hair towards their forehead, and back again,
and never move their heads. ‘There are those that can swallow twenty
things whole, and pressing their stomach lightly, give you every thing
up as whole as if they had but put into a bag. There are those that
can counterfeit the voices of birds and other men, so cunningly, that
unless you see them, you cannot discern them for your hearts. There
are that can break wind backward continuously, that you would think
they sung. I have seen one sweat whenever he pleased, and it is sure that
some can weep when they list, and shed tears, plentifully. But even more
wonderful was the case latelyseen bysome of the brethren in a priest called
Restitutus, of the village of Calamon, who when he pleased (and they
tequested him to shew them this rare experiment), at the imitation of
funeral wailing, drew himself into such an ecstasy, that he lay as if dead,
senseless of all punishing, pricking, nay even of burning, but that he
felt it sore after his awaking. And this ecstasy was found to be true,
and not counterfeit in him, in that he lay still without any breathing :
yet he said afterward, that if one spake aloud, he thought he heard him,
as if he were afar off. Seeing therefore that in this frail state of ours,
the body serves the will in such extraordinary emotions ; why should we
not believe that before his disobedience, the first man might have had
his means and members of generation without lust? But he taking
delight in himself, was left by God unto himself, and therefore could
not obey himself, because he would not obey God. And this proves
his misery the plainer, in that he cannot live as he would: for if he
would do so, he might think himself happy : yet living, in obscenity, he
would not be so indeed.

CHAPTER XXV.
Of the true beatitude: unattainable in this Life.

Bur if we observe aright: none lives as he list, without he is happy,
and no one is happy, without being righteous, yet the just man lives not

Of the City of God. | 51

as he pleases, until he attain that sure, eternal, hurtless, undeceiving
state. That he naturally desires, nor can he be perfect, until he have
his desire. But what man here upon earth can say he lives as he pleases,
when his life is not in his own hand? he would fain live, and he must
die. How then lives he as he pleases, that lives not as long as he
pleases? But if he desires to die, how can he live as he desires when he
does not wish to live at all? and if he desire to die, not to forego all life,
but to change it for a better, then lives he not as he likes, but attains
that by dying. But admit this, he lives as he likes, because he has
forced himself, and brought himself to this, to desire nothing but what is
in his power, as Terence says: ‘‘Since you cannot have what you would
have, desire that which you may have:” yet is he not blessed, because
he is patiently wretched. For beatitude is not attained unless it be
loved. And if it be both attained and loved, then must this love needs
surmount all other, because all other things are loved for this. And if
this be loved as it ought to be (for he that loves not beatitude as it ought
to be loved cannot be happy) then he cannot help desiring it to be
eternal. So that the blessed life must needs be joined with eternity.

CHAPTER XXVI.

That our first parents in Paradise might have produced mankind without
any shameful appetite.

THEREFORE man lived in Paradise as he desired, whilst he only desired
what God commanded, he enjoyed God, from whence was his good : he
lived without need, and had life eternal in his power, he had meat for
hunger, drink for thirst, the tree of life to keep off age, he was free from
all bodily corruption and sensible molestation : he feared neither disease
within nor violence without : height of health was in his flesh, and fulness
of peace in his soul, and as Paradise was neither fiery nor frosty, neither
was the inhabitant’s good will offended either with desire, or fear: there
was no true sorrow, nor vain joy, their joy continued by God’s mercy,
whom they loved with a pure good conscience and an unfeigned faith :
their wedlock love was holy and honest, their vigilance and custody of
the precept without all toil or trouble. They were neither weary of
leisure, nor unwillingly sleepy. In tanta facilitate rerum et felicitate
hominum, absit ut suspicemur, non potuisse prolem seri sine libidinis
morbo: sed eo voluntatis nutu moverentur illa membra que cetera,
et sine ardoris illecebroso stimulo cum tranquillitate animi et corporis
nulla corruptione integritatis infunderetur gremio maritus uxoris. Neque
enim quia experientia probari non potest, ideo credendum non est ;
quando illas corporis partes non ageret turbidus calor, sed spontanea
potestas, sicut opus esset adhiberet ; ita tunc potuisse utero conjugis
salva integritate feminei genitalis virile semen immitti, sicut nunc potest

52 St Augustine.

eadem integritate salva ex utero virginis fluxus menstrui cruoris emitti.
Eadem quippe via posset illud injici, qua hoc potest ejici. Ut enim ad
pariendum non doloris gemitus, sed maturitatis impulsus feminea viscera
relaxaret; sic ad fcetandum et concipiendum non libidinis appetitus,
sed voluntarius usus naturam utramque conjungeret.” This theme
is immodest, and therefore, let us conjecture as we can, how the first
parents of man were, ere they were ashamed: needs must our dis-
course hereupon, rather yield to shamefastness than trust to eloquence:
the one restrains us much, and the other helps us little, for seeing they
that might have tried, did not try this that I have said, desiring by sin
to be expelled Paradise, before they had used their means of propagating
man, how can man now conceive it should be done, except by the means
of that headlong lust, not by any quiet will? This is that which stops
my mouth, though I behold the reason in mine heart. But however,
Almighty God, the Creator of all nature, the helper and rewarder of a"
good wills, the just condemner of the bad, and the ordainer of both,
wanted no prescience how to fulfil the number of those whom He had
destined to be of His city, even out of the condemned progeny of man,
distinguishing them not by their merits (for the whole fruit was con-
demned in the corrupted steck) but by His own grace, freeing them both
from themselves, and the slavish world, and showing them what He
bestowed on them; for each one now acknowledges that it is not his
own deserts, but God’s goodness that has freed him from evil, and from
their society with whom he would have shared a just condemnation.
Why then might not God create such as He knew would sin, thereby to
shew in them and their progeny both what sin deserved, and what His
mercy bestowed? and that the perverse inordinate offence of them,
under Him, could not pervert the right order which He had resolved ?

CHAPTER XXVII.

That the sinners, angels, and men, cannot with their perverseness disturb
God’s providence.

Anp therefore the offending angels and men no way hindered the great
works of God, who is absolute in all that He wills; His omnipotency
distributes all unto all, and knows how to make use both of good and bad :
and therefore why might not God, using the evil angel (whom He had de-
servedly condemned for his evil will, and cast from all good) unto a good
end, permit him to tempt the first man in whom He had placed an upright
will? and who was in such a state, that if he would build upon God’s help,
a good man would conquer an evil angel; but if he fell proudly from
God, to delight in himself, he would be conquered, having a reward laid
up for his uprightness of will assisted by God, and a punishment for his
perverseness of will in forsaking God. ‘Trust upon God’s help he could
not, unless God helped him: yet follows it not, that he had no power

Of the City of God. 53

of himself, to leave this divine help in relying wholly upon himself:
for though we cannot live well in the flesh without nourishment, yet
may we leave the flesh when we please: as suicides: even so, man
being in Paradise could not live well without God’s help: but yet it
was in his power to live badly, and to select a false beatitude, and a
sure misery. Why then might not God that knew this beforehand, per-
mit him to be tempted by the malicious wicked spirit? Not being
ignorant that he would fall, but knowing withal, how doubly the devil
would be overthrown by those that His grace should select out of man’s
posterity. Thus God neither was ignorant of the future event, neither
compelled He any one to offend : but shewed by succeeding experience
both to men and angels, what difference there was between presuming
on one’s self, and trusting unto Him. For who dare say, or think that
God could not have kept both men and angels from falling? But He
would not take it out of their powers, but shewed thereby the wickedness
of their pride, and the goodness of His own grace. ~

CHAPTER XXVIII.
The state of the two cities, the heavenly and the earthly.

Two loves therefore, have given original to these two cities: self-love in
contempt of God unto the earthly, love of God in contempt of one’s self
to the heavenly ; the first seeks the glory of men, and the latter desires
God only as the testimony of the conscience, the greatest glory. That
glories in itself, and this in God. That exalts itself in self-glory: this
says to God: “ My glory and the lifter up of my head.” That boasts
of the ambitious conquerors, led by the lust of sovereignty: in this
every one serves other in charity, both the rulers in counselling and the
subjects in obeying. ‘That loves worldly virtue in the potentates : this
says unto God, “I will love Thee, O Lord, my strength.” And the
wise men of that, follow either the good things of the body, or mind, or
both : living according to the flesh: and such as might know God,
honoured Him not as God, nor were thankful but became vain in their own
imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened : for professing them-
selves to be wise, that is, extolling themselves proudly in their wisdom,
they became fools: changing the glory of the incorruptible God to the
likeness of the image of a corruptible man, and of birds and four-footed
_ beasts and serpents: for they were the people’s guides, or followers unto
all those idolatries, and served the creature more than the Creator who
is blessed for ever. But in this other, this heavenly city, there is no
wisdom of man, but only the piety that serves the true God and expects
a reward in the society of the holy angels, and men, that God may
_be all in all.

THE
FIFTEENTH BOOK? OF THE City Or Gop,

———. 0 .————

CHAPTER I.

Of the two contrary courses taken by the human race from the beginning.

O* the place and felicity of the local Paradise, together with man’s

life and fall therein, there are many opinions, many assertions,
and many books, as several men thought, spoke, and wrote. What we
held hereof, or could gather out of Holy Scriptures, correspondent
unto their truth and authority, we related in some of the foregoing
books: if they be farther looked into, they will give birth to more
questions, and longer disputations than we have now room for: our
time is not so large as to permit us to argue scrupulously upon every
question that may be asked by busy heads that are more curious of
inquiry than capable of understanding. I think we have sufficiently
discussed the doubts concerning the beginning of the world, the soul,
and mankind: which last is divided into two sorts: such as live accord-
ing to man, and such as live according to God. These, we mystically
call, “‘two cities” or societies, the one predestinated to reign eternally with
- God: the other condemned to perpetual torment with the devil. This
is their end: of which hereafter. Now seeing we have said sufficient
concerning their original, both in the angels whose number we know
not, and in the two first parents of mankind: I think it fit to pass on
to their career, from man’s first offspring until he cease to beget any
more. Between which two points all the time included, wherein the
livers ever succeed the diers, is the career of these “two cities.”
Cain therefore was the first begotten of those two that were mankind’s
parents: and he belongs to the city of man: Abel was the later, and
he belongs to the city of God. For as we see that in that one man
(as the apostle says) that which is spiritual was not first, but that which
is natural first, and then the spiritual (whereupon all that comes from
Adam’s corrupted nature must needs be evil and carnal at first, and then
if he be regenerate by Christ, becomes good and spiritual afterward) :
so in the first propagation of man, and course of the “two cities”

Of the City of God. 55

of which we dispute, the carnal citizen was born first, and the pilgrim on
earth, or heavenly citizen, afterwards, being by grace predestinated, and
by grace elected, by grace a pilgrim upon earth, and by grace a citizen
in heaven. For as for his birth, it was out of the same corrupted mass
that was condemned from the beginning: but God like a potter (for
this simile the apostle himself uses) out of the same lump, made “one
vessel to honour and another to reproach.” ‘The vessel of reproach was
made first, and the vessel of honour afterwards. For in that one man,
as I said, first was reprobation, whence we must needs begin (and
wherein we need not remain), and afterwards, goodness, to which we
come by profiting, and coming thither, therein making our abode.
Whereupon it follows that no one can be good that has not first been evil,
though all that be evil become not good: but the sooner a man betters
himself the quicker does this name follow him, abolishing the memory
of the other. Therefore it is recorded of Cain that he built a city, but
Abel was a pilgrim, and built none. For the city of the saints is above,
though it have citizens here upon earth, wherein it lives as a pilgrim
until the time of the kingdom come, and then it gathers all the
citizens together in the resurrection of the body and gives them a
kingdom to reign in with their King, for ever and ever.

CHAPTER II.
Of the sons of the flesh, and the sons of promise.

TueE shadow and prophetical image of this city (not presenting it but
signifying it) served here upon earth, at the time when it was to be dis-
covered, and was called “the holy city,” of the significant image, but
not of the express truth, wherein it was afterwards to be stated. Of this
image serving, and of the “free city” herein prefigured, the apostle
speaks thus unto the Galatians: “Tell me ye that desire to be under
the law, do ye not hear the law? for it is written that Abraham had two
sons, one by a bondwoman, and the other by a free:” but the son of the
bondwoman was born of the flesh, and the son of the freewoman by pro-
mise. Which things are an allegory: for these are the two Testaments, the
one given from Mount Sinai, begetting man in servitude, which is Hagar :
for Sinai is a mountain in Arabia, joined to the Jerusalem on earth, for it
serves with her children. But our mother the celestial Jerusalem is free,
for it is written, “‘ Rejoice thou barren that bearest not: break forth into
joy, and cry out, thou that travailest not with child, for the desolate hath
many more children than the married wife, but we, brethren, are the sons
of promise according to Isaac.” But as then he that was born of the
flesh, persecuted him that was born after the spirit, even so it is now.
Nevertheless says the Scripture, “ Cast out the bondwoman and her son,
for the bondwoman’s son shall not be heir with the freewoman’s. Then
brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free.” Thus

56 St Augustine.

the apostle authorises us to conceive of the old and new covenant.
For a part of the earthly city was made an image of the heavenly, not
signifying itself, but another, and therefore serving: for it was not
ordained to signify itself, but another, and itself was signified by another
precedent signification : for Hagar, Sarah’s servant, and her son, were a
type hereof. And because when the light comes, the shadows must flee
away, Sarah the freewoman, signifying the free city (which that shadow
signified in another manner), said, “Cast out the bondwoman and her
son: for the bondwoman’s son shall not be heir with my son Isaac:”
whom the apostle calls the freewoman’s son. Thus then we find this
earthly city in two forms: the one presenting itself, and the other pre-
figuring the city celestial, and serving it. Our nature, corrupted by sin,
produces citizens of earth ; arid grace freeing us from the sin of nature,
makes us citizens of heaven: the first are called the vessels of wrath:
the last, of mercy. And this was signified in the two sons of Abraham :
the one of which being born of the bondwoman, was called Ishmael,
being the son of the flesh : the other, the freewoman’s, Isaac, the son of
promise. Both were Abraham’s sons: but natural custom begot the
first, and gracious promise the latter. In the first was a demonstration
of man’s use, in the second was a commendation of God’s goodness.

CHAPTER IIT,
Of Sarah's barrenness, which God turned into fruitfulness.

For Sarah was barren and despaired of having any child: and desiring
to have a child, though it were from her slave, gave her to Abraham to
bring him children, seeing she could bring him none herself. Thus
exacted she her due of her husband, although it were by the womb of
another: so was Ishmael born, being begotten by the usual commixture
of both sexes in the law of nature: and thereupon said to be born after
the flesh: not that such births are not God’s benefits or works (for
His working wisdom, as the Scripture says, reaches from end to end,
mightily and sweetly ordering all things): but in that, that for the
signification of that free grace that God meant to give unto man, such
a son should be born, as the laws and order of nature did not require :
for nature denies children unto all such copulations as Abraham’s and
Sarah’s were, age and barrenness both swaying in her then: whereas
she could have no child in her younger days, when her age seemed not
to want fruitfulness, though fruitfulness was lacking in that youthful age.
Therefore in that her nature being thus affected could not exact the
birth of a son, is signified this, that man’s nature being corrupted and
consequently condemned for sin, had no claim afterward unto any part
of felicity. But Isaac being born by promise, is a true type of the
sons of grace, of those free citizens, of those dwellers in eternal peace,

Of the City of God. 57

where no private or self-love shall be predominant, but all shall joy in
that universal good, and many hearts shall meet in one, forming a
perfect model of charity and obedience.

CHAPTER IV.
Of the conflict and peace of the earthly city.

But the temporal, earthly city (temporal, for when it is condemned to
perpetual pains it shall be no more a city) has all the good here upon
earth, and therein takes that joy that such an object can afford. But
because it is not a good that acquits the possessors of all troubles,
therefore this city is divided in itself into wars, altercations, and ap-
petites of bloody and deadly victories. For any part of it that wars
against another, desires to be the world’s conqueror, whereas indeed it
is vice’s slave. And if it conquer, it extols itself and so becomes its
own destruction: but if we consider the condition of worldly affairs,
and grieve at man’s openness to adversity, rather than delight in the
events of prosperity, thus is the victory deadly: for it cannot keep a
sovereignty for ever where it got a victory for once. Nor can we call
the objects of this city’s desires, good, it itself in its own human nature,
far surmounting them. It desires an earthly peace, for very low am-
bitions, and seeks it by war, where if it subdue all resistance, it attains
peace: which notwithstanding the other side, that fought so unfor-
tunately for the same reasons, lack. This peace they seek by laborious
war, and obtain (they think) by a glorious victory. And when they
conquer that had the right cause, who will not congratulate their victory,
and be glad of their peace? Doubtless those are good, and God’s good
gifts. But if the things appertaining to that celestial and supernal city
where the victory shall be everlasting, be neglected foi those goods, and
those goods desired as the only goods, or loved as if they were better
than the other, misery must needs follow and increase that which is
inherent before.
CHAPTER V.

Of that murderer of his brother, that was the first founder of the earthly
city, whose act the builder of Rome paralleled, in murdering his
brother also.

THEREFORE this earthly city’s foundation was laid by a murderer of his
own brother, whom he slew through envy, and who was an earthly pilgrim,
of the heavenly city. Whereupon it is no wonder if the founder of that
city which was to become the world’s chief, and the queen of the nation,
followed this his first example or archetype in the same fashion. One
of their poets records the fact in these words—

“ Fraterno primi maduerunt sanguine muri.”
‘ The first walls stained with a brother’s blood’

58 St Augustine.

Such was Rome’s foundation, and such was Romulus’ murder of his
brother Remus, as their histories relate: only this difference there is,
these brethren were both citizens of the earthly city and propagators of
the glory of Rome, for whose institution they contended. But they
both could not have that glory, that if they had been but one, they
might have had. For he that glories in dominion, must needs see his
glory diminished when he has a partner to share with him. Therefore
the one to have all, killed his partner, and by villainy grew into bad
greatness, whereas innocence would have installed him in honest mean-
ness. But those two brethren, Cain and Abel, stood not both alike
affected to earthly matters: nor did this produce envy in them, that if
they both should reign, he that could kill the other, should arise to a
greater pitch of glory, for Abel sought no dominion in that city which
his brother built, but that devil, envy did all the mischief, which the bad
bear unto the good, only because they are good: for the possession of
goodness is not lessened by being shared: nay, it is increased when it
has many possessing it in one link and league of charity. Nor shall he
ever have it, that will not have it common ; and he that loves a partner
in it, shall have it more abundantly. The strife therefore of Romulus
and Remus shews the division of the earthly city in itself: and that of
Cain and Abel shews the opposition of the city of men and the city
of God. The wicked oppose the good: but the good being perfect,
cannot contend amongst themselves: but whilst they are imperfect they
may contend one against another in that manner that each contends
against himself, for in every man the flesh is against the spirit and the
spirit against the flesh. So then the spiritual desire in one may fight
against the carnal in another, or contrariwise: the carnal against the
spiritual, as the evil do against the good; or the two carnal desires of
two good men that are imperfect may contend as the bad do against the
bad, until their diseases be cured, and themselves brought to everlasting
health of victory.

CHAPTER VI.

Of the weaknesses God's citizens endure tn earth as the punishments of sin
during their pilgrimage, and of the grace of God curing them.
Bur the weakness or disobedience (spoken of in the last book) is the
first punishment of disobedience, and therefore it is no nature, but a
corruption: for which it is said unto those earthly pilgrims and the
growing in grace: “ Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the
law of Christ:” and again, “ Admonish the unruly, comfort the feeble
be patient towards all, overcome evil with good, see that none render
evil for evil:” and again, “ If a man be fallen by occasion into any sin
ye that are spiritual restore such an one in the spirit of meekness,
considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted :” and besides, “Let not
the sun go down upon your wrath :” and in the Gospel, “ If thy brother

: Of the City of God. 59

' trespass against thee, take him and tell him his fault between thee and
him alone.”

And concerning the scandalous offenders, the apostle says: “ Them
that sin, rebuke openly that the rest may fear:” and in this respect many
things are taught concerning pardoning. And a great charge is laid
upon us to keep that peace there, where that great fear of the servant's
being commanded to pay the ten thousand talents he owed, because he
forcibly exacted his fellow’s debt of an hundred pence. Unto which
family the Lord Jesus added this clause : ‘‘So shall My heavenly Father
do unto you, except ye forgive each one his brother’s trespasses from
your hearts.” Thus are God’s citizens upon earth cured of their diseases,
whilst they are longing for the celestial habitation. But the Holy Spirit
works within to make the salve work that is outwardly applied, otherwise
though God should speak to mankind out of any creature, either
sensibly or in dreams, and not dispose our hearts with His inward
grace, the preaching of the truth would not further man’s conversion a
whit. But this does God in His secret and just providence, dividing
the vessels of wrath and mercy. And it is His admirable and secret
work, that sin being in us rather the punishment of sin, as the apostle
says, and dwelling in our members, when it does not reign in our mortal
body, obeying the desires of it; and when we do not give up our
members as instruments of iniquity to serve it, it is converted into a
mind consenting not unto it in any evil, by God’s government, and man
that has it somewhat quietly here, shall have it afterwards most perfectly
settled, sinless, and in eternal peace.

CHAPTER VII.

Of the cause and obstinacy of Cain’s wickedness, which was not repressed
by God's own words,

But that same speaking of God unto Cain in the form of some of His
creatures (as we have shewed that He used to do with the first men),
what good did it do him? did he not fulfil his wicked intent to murder
his brother, after God had warned him? who having distinguished both
their sacrifices, rejecting the one and receiving the other (no doubt by
some visible sign), and that because the one wrought evil and the other
good, Cain grew exceeding wroth, and his look was dejected. And
God said unto him: “ Why is thy look dejected? If thou offer well, and
dividest not well, hast thou not sinned ? be quiet, unto thee shall his desire
be subject, and thou shalt rule over him.” In this admonition of God
unto Cain, because the first words, “If thou offer well and dividest not
well, hast thou not sinned,” are of doubtful understanding, the transia-
tors have drawn it unto divers senses, each one seeking to lay it down
by the line of faith. A sacrifice that is offered to the true God, to whom

60 St Augustine.

only such are due is well offered. But the division may be evil made
upon a bad distinction of the times, place, offering, offerers, or of him
to whom it is offered, or of them to whom the offering is distributed :
meaning here by division, a discerning between offering at due times,
in due places, due offerings, due distributions and the contraries of all
these: as if we offer, where, when, and what we should not: or reserve
better to ourselves than we offer to God: or distribute the offering to
the unsanctified, herein profaning the sacrifice. In which of these Cain
offended God we cannot easily find. But as the Apostle John said of
these two brethren: ‘‘ Not as Cain who was of that wicked one, and slew
his brother, and wherefore slew he him? because his own works were evil
and his brother’s good.” This proves that God respected not his gifts ;
for that he divided evil, giving God only some of his cattle, and giving
himself to himself, as all do that leave God’s will to follow their own, and
living in perverseness of heart, offer gifts unto God as it were to buy
Him, not to cure their vicious desires but to fulfil them. This is the
property of the earthly city to worship one, or many gods, for victory
and terrestrial peace, never for charitable instruction, but all for lust of
sovereignty. ‘The good use this world to the enjoying of God, but the
wicked, just contrariwise, would use God to enjoy the world—such I mean
as hold there is a God and He is interested in mankind: for there are
those that are far worse and believe not this. So then Cain knowing that
God respected his brother’s sacrifice and not his, ought to have changed
himself and fallen to imitation of his good brother ; not to have swollen
up in envy against him. But because he was sad, and his looks cast
down, this grief at another’s good, chiefly his brother’s, God finds
great fault with, for thereupon He asked him, saying: “‘ Why art thou
sad, and why is thy countenance cast down?” His envy to his brother,
God saw, and reprehended. Man, that knows not the heart, might
well have doubted whether he was sad for his own badness that dis-
pleased God, or for his brother’s goodness, for which God accepted his
sacrifice. But God giving a reason why He would not accept his, that
he might have juster cause to dislike himself than his brother, having
not divided, that is, not lived well, and being not worthy to have his
sacrifice accepted, shews that he was far more wicked, in this, that he
hated his just brother for no cause: yet He sends him not away with-
out a good and holy command: “ Be quiet,” quoth He, “for unto thee
shall his desire be subject and thou shalt rule over him.” What, over
his brother? God forbid, no, but over sin; for He had said before,
“ Hast thou not sinned?” and now He adds, “ Be quiet, for unto thee,”
&c. Some may take it thus, that sin shall be turned upon man, so that
he that sins, shall have none to blame for it but himself; for this is
the wholesome medicine of repentance, and the fit plea for pardon, that
these words of God be understood as a precept, and not as a prophecy :
for then shall every man rule over sin, when he does not support it by

Of the City of God. ; 61

excuse, but subdues it by repentance: otherwise he that becomes the
protector of it, shall sure become prisoner to it. But if we understand
this sin to be that carnal concupiscence whereof the apostle says: ‘‘ The
flesh lusteth against the spirit,” amongst whose works, envy is reckoned
for one, which incited Cain to his brother’s murder, then we may well
take these words thus: “It shall be turned unto thee, and thou shalt
rule over it ;” for the carnal part being moved (which the apostle calls
sin, saying, ‘I do not this but the sin which dwelleth in me”): which
part the philosophers call the vicious part of the soul, that ought not to
rule but to serve the mind, and be thereby curbed from unreasonable
acts: when this moves us to any mischief, if we follow the apostle’s
counsel, saying, “‘ Yield not your members as weapons of unrighteousness
unto sin,” then is this part conquered and brought under the mind and
reason. This rule God gave him that was in malice with his brother, and —
desired to kill him whom he ought to follow: be quiet, quoth He—that
is, keep thine hands out of mischief, let not sin get predominance in thy
body, to effect what it desires, nor give thou thy members up as weapons of
unrighteousness thereunto, for unto thee shall the desires thereof become
subject, if thou restrain it by suppression and increase it not by giving it
scope. And thou shalt rule over it: permit it not to perform any
external act, and thy goodness of will shall exclude it from all internal
motion. Such a saying there is also of the woman, when God had
examined and condemned our first parents after their sin, the devil in
the serpent, and man and woman in themselves: “I will greatly in-
crease thy sorrows and thy conceptions,” says He, “ in sorrow shalt thou
bring forth children ;” and then He adds, “ And thy desire shall be sub-
ject to thine husband and he shall rule over thee :” thus what was said
to Cain concerning sin or concupiscence, the same was said here to the
offending woman: where we must learn, that the man must govern the
woman, as the soul should govern the body. Whereupon the apostle
said, “ He that loveth his wife loveth himself, for no man ever hated his
own flesh.” These we must cure, as our own, not cast away, as strangers.
But Cain conceived of God’s command like a wicked reprobate, and
yielding to his height of envy, lay in wait for his brother and slew him.
This was the founder of the fleshly city. How he furthermore was a
type of the Jews, that killed Christ the true Shepherd, prefigured in the
shepherd Abel, I spare to relate, because it is a prophetical allegory,
and I remember that I said somewhat hereof in my work against Faustus
the Manichee.
CHAPTER VIII.

The reason why Cain was the first of mankind that ever built a city.

Bur now must I defend the authority of the divine history that says,
that this one man built a city, when there were but three or four men
upon earth, after he had killed his brother, there were but Adam, the

62 St Augustine.

first father, Cain himself and his son Enoch, whose name was given to
the city. But they that stick at this, consider not that the Scriptures
need not name all the men that were upon earth at that time: but only
those that were pertinent to the purpose. The purpose of the Holy
Ghost in Moses was to draw a pedigree and genealogy from Adam,
through certain men, unto Abraham, and so by his seed unto the people
of God: which being distinct from all other nations, might contain all
the types and prefigurations of the eternal city of Heaven and Christ
the King and Founder : all which were spiritual and to come : yet so, that
the men of the earthly city, had mention made of them also; as far as
was necessary to shew the adversaries of the said glorious city of God.
Therefore when the Scriptures reckon up a man’s time, and conclude,
he lived thus long, and had sons or daughters, must we imagine that
because he names not those sons and daughters, there might be in so
many years as one man lived in those times, as many children gotten
and born as would serve to people divers cities? But it belonged to
God, who inspired the Spirit by which the Scriptures were penned, to
distinguish these two states, by several generations, as first, that the
several genealogies of the carnal citizens, and of the spiritual unto the
deluge, might be collected by themselves where they are both recited:
their difference, in that the one is recited down from the murderer
Cain, and the other from the righteous Seth, whom Adam had given for
him whom Cain had murdered, and their conjunction, in that all men
grew from bad to worse, so that they deserved to be all overwhelmed
with the flood, excepting one just man called Noah, his wife, his three
sons, and their wives: only these eight persons did God vouchsafe to
deliver in the ark, of all the whole generation of mankind, whereas
therefore it is written : “ And Cain knew his wife which conceived and
bare Enoch, and he built a city and called it by his son’s name, Enoch:”
this proves not that he was his first son, for we may not think that be-
cause it is said here, “that he knew his wife,” that he had not known
her before, for this is said of Adam also, not only when Cain was be-
gotten, who was his first son, but when Seth, his younger son, was born
also. Adam knew his wife and she conceived and bare a son and
called his name Seth. Plain it is then, that the Scripture uses this
phrase in all copulations, and not only in those wherein the first begotten
are born. Nor is it necessary that Enoch should be Cain’s first son,
because the city bore his name; there might be some other reason why
his father loved him above the rest, for Judah, of whom the name of
Judah and Jews came, was not Israel’s first born: but admit Enoch
was this builder’s first son, it does not follow that his father named
the city after him as soon as he was born, for then could not he have
founded a city, which is nothing else but a multitude of men combined
in one band of society. Therefore when this man’s children and family
grew populous, then he might sort them into a city, and call it after his

—

Of the City of God. 63

first son, for the men lived so long in those days, that of all that are re-

_ corded together with their years, he that lived the least time lived seven

hundred and fifty-three years. And some exceeded nine hundred, yet
all were short of a thousand. Who makes any doubt now that in one ~
man’s time, mankind might increase to a number able to replenish many
cities more than one? It is a good proof hereof, that of Abraham’s
seed only, the Hebrew people in less than five hundred years grew to
such a number that there went six hundred thousand persons of them
out of Egypt, and those all warlike youths: to omit the progeny of the
Idumeans that Esau begot, and the nations that came of Abraham’s
other son, not by Sarah: for these belong not to Israel.

CHAPTER IX.
Of the length of life and bigness of body that men had before the deluge.

THEREFORE no wise man need doubt that Cain might build a city, and

that a large one, men living so long in those days: unless some faithless

people will take occasion of incredulity from the number of years which

our authors recite men to have lived, and say it is impossible: and so
_ also they may deny the bigness of men’s bodies in those days to have far

exceeded ours; whereof their famous poet, Virgil, gives a testimony of a

boulder stone, that a valiant man caught up in fight, and running upon

his foe, threw this at him.

“ Vix illud lecti bis sex cervice tulissent,
Qualia nunc hominum producit corpora tellus.”
‘It passed the power of twelve strong men to raise,
That stone from ground : as men go nowadays.’

Intimating that men of elder times were of far larger bodies: how

much more then before that famous deluge in the world’s infancy?

This difference of growth is proved out of old sepulchres which either

ruins, or ruiners, or some chance have opened, and wherein have been

found bones of an incredible bigness. Upon the shore of Utica, I my-

self and many with me, saw a man’s axle-tooth of that bigness, that if

it had been cut into pieces, would have made an hundred of ours. But

I think it was some giant’s tooth; for though the ancients’ bodies ex-

ceed ours, the giants exceeded all them: and our times have seen

some (though very few) that have overgrown the ordinary stature ex-
ceedingly. Pliny the second, that great scholar, affirms that the longer
the world lasts, the lesser bodies shall nature produce: as Homer

.

(he says) does often complain: not deriding it as a fiction, but record-

_ ing it as a writer of the miracles of nature. But as I said, the bones of

the entombed ancients have left great proofs of this unto posterity : but
_as for the continuance of their times, that cannot be proved by any of
those testimonies: yet may we not derogate from the credit of the Holy

iia nor be so impudent in being incredulous of what they relate,

,

q

64. St Augustine,

seeing we see those things have such certain events, that they foretell.
Pliny says that there is as yet a country wherein men live two hundred
years. If then we believe that this length of life which we have not
known, is yet extant in some unknown countries, why may we not be-
lieve that it has been general in ancient times? Is it possible that that
which is not here may be in another place, and is it impossible that
that which is not now, might have come at some other time?

CHAPTER X.
Of the difference that seems to be between the Hebrews’ computation and ours.

WHEREFORE though there seem to be some difference between the
Hebrews’ computation and ours, I know not upon what cause, yet it
does not disprove that those men lived as long as we say they did. For
Adam, ere he begot Seth, is said by our books to have lived two
hundred and thirty years, by the Hebrews’ but one hundred and
thirty. But after he had begotten Seth, he lived seven hundred years
by our account, and eight hundred by the Hebrews’. Thus both agree
in the main sum. And so in the following generations, the Hebrews
are still at such or such an one’s birth, an hundred years behind us in
this father’s age, but in his years after his son’s birth, they still come up
unto our general sum, and both agree in one. But in the sixth genera-
tion they differ not a letter. In the seventh generation wherein Enoch
was (not he that died, but that he pleased God and was translated) there
is the same difference of the one hundred years before he begot his son :
but all come to one end still: both the books making him live three
hundred sixty and five years ere his translation.

The eighth generation has some difference, but of less moment, and
not like to this. For Methuselah having begotten Enoch, before he had
_ his next son whom the Scriptures name, is said by the Hebrews to have
lived twenty years longer than we say he lived: but in the account of
his years after this son, we added the twenty, and both agree in one
just sum. Only in the ninth generation, that is, in the years of Lamech
the son of Methuselah and the father of Noah, we differ in the whole
sum, but it is but four and twenty years, and that they have more than
we: for his age, ere he begot Noah, in the Hebrew is six years less than
in ours: and their sum of his years afterwards is thirty more than ours:
which six taken from thirty, leaves four and twenty, as I said before.

CHAPTER XI.

Of Methuselah’s years, who seems to have lived fourteen years after
the deluge.

Bur here is a notable question arising upon this difference between us
and the Hebrews, where Methuselah is recorded to have lived fourteen

Of the City of God. 65

years after the deluge: whereas the Scripture accounts but eight persons
that were saved therein of all mankind, and of these Methuselah was not
one. For in our books, Methuselah lived ere he begot Lamech, one
hundred and sixty-seven years, and Lamech until he begot Noah, one
hundred fourscore and eight years, which joined, make three hundred and
fifty-five years, unto which add Noabh’s five hundred years (for then began
the deluge), and so the time between Methuselah’s birth and the deluge is
nine hundred and fifty-five years. Now Methuselah’s days are reckoned
to be nine hundred and sixty-nine years : for being one hundred and sixty-
seven years of age ere he begot Lamech, he lived eight hundred and two
years after, which make in all nine hundred and sixty-nine, from whence
take nine hundred and fifty-five (the time from his birth to the deluge)
and there remains fourteen, which he is thought to live after the deluge.
Whereupon some think that he lived this time (not upon earth, for there
was not a soul of those escaped, but) in the place to which his son was
translated, with him until the deluge were come and gone: because they
will not call the authority of these truths into question, seeing the Church
has allowed them, nor believe that the Jews have the truth rather than
we: nor allow that this should rather be an error in us, than in those
out of whom we have it by the Greek. But say they, it is incredible
that the seventy interpreters, who translated all at one time, and in one
sense, could err, or would falsify in a matter indifferent to them: but
that the Jews, envying our translations of their law and their prophets,
altered diverse things in their books, to subvert the authority of ours.
This suspicion, a matter of opinion, everyone may take as he please:
but this at least is certain, Methuselah lived not after the deluge, but
died in the same year, if the Hebrews’ account be true. Concerning
the Septuagint’s translation, I will speak my mind hereafter, when I
come (by God’s help) to the times themselves, as the method of the
work shall exact. Suffice it for this present question to have shewn by
both books, that the fathers of old lived so long, that one man might
see a number of his own propagation sufficient to build a city.

CHAPTER XII.
Of those who do not believe that men of old time lived so long as is recorded.

Nor is any ear to be given unto those that think that one of our ordin-
ary years would make ten of the years of those times, they were so short :
and therefore say they, nine hundred years of theirs, that is to say, ninety
of ours: their ten is our one, and their hundred, our ten. Thus they
think that Adam was but twenty and three years old when he begat Seth:
and Seth but twenty and a half when he begat Enos, which the Scrip-
tures call two hundred and five years. For as these men hold, the
Scripture divided one year into ten parts, calling each part a year: and
each part has a sixfold quadrate, because that in six days God made the

II. E

66 St Augustine.

world, resting upon the seventh (on which I have already argued in the
eleventh book). Now six times six (for six makes the sixfold quadrate)
is thirty-six: and ten times thirty-six is three hundred and sixty, that
is twelve months of the moon. The five days remaining and that
quarter of a day, which four times doubled is added to the leap year,
those were added by the ancients afterwards to make up the number of
other years, and the Romans called them Dies intercalares: days inter-
calated. So Enos was nineteen years of age when he begat Cainan, the
Scriptures saying he was one hundred fourscore and ten years. And so
down through all generations to the deluge, there is not one in all our
books that begat any son at a hundred, or a hundred and twenty
years, or thereabouts, but he that was the youngest father was one
hundred and threescore years of age: because (say they) none can be-
get a child at ten years of age, which that number of a hundred makes:
but at sixteen years they are competent to have children, and that is as
the Scriptures say, when they are one hundred and threescore years old.
And to prove this diversity of years likely, they allude to the Egyptian
years of four months, the Acarnanians of six months, and the Lavinians
of thirteen months. Pliny having recorded that some lived one hundred
and fifty years, some ten more, some two hundred years, some three
hundred, some five hundred, some six hundred, nay some eight hun-
dred, held that all this grew upon ignorance in computation. For
some (says he) made two years of summer and winter: some made four
years of the four quarters, as the Arcadians did with their year of three
months. And the Egyptians (says he) besides their little years of four
months (as we said before) made the course of the moon to conclude a
year, every month. Thus amongst them (says he) are some recorded to
have lived a thousand years. These probabilities have some brought, not
to overthrow the authority of Holy Scriptures, but to prove it credible that
the patriarchs might live so long, and persuaded themselves (thinking it
no folly neither to persuade others so in like manner) that their years in
those days were so little, that ten of them made but one of ours, and an
hundred of theirs, ten of ours. But I will lay open the eminent false-
ness of this, immediately. Yet ere I do it, I must first touch at a more
credible suspicion. We might overthrow this assertion out of the
Hebrew books, which say that Adam was not two hundred and thirty,
but a hundred and thirty years old when he begat his third son, which
if they make but thirteen years, then he begat his first son at the
eleventh or twelfth year of his age. And who can in nature’s ordinary
course now beget a child so young? But let us except Adam, perhaps
he might have begotten one as soon as he was created: for we may not
think that he was created a little one, as our children are born. But
now his son Seth, was not two hundred years old (as we read) but a
hundred and fifty, when he begat Enos, and by their account but eleven
years of age. What shall I say of Cainan who begat Mahalaleel at

Of the City of God. 67

seventy, not at a hundred and seventy years of age, say the Hebrews?
If those were but seven years, what man can beget a child then?

CHAPTER XIII.

Whether we ought to follow the Hebrew computation, or that of the
Septuagint,
But if I say thus, or thus, I shall possibly be told, it is one of the Jews’
lies: of which before: for it is incredible that such laudable and honour-
able fathers as the translators of the Septuagint were, would record
an untruth. Now if I should ask them whether it be likely that a
nation so large, and so far dispersed as the Jews, should all lay their
heads together to forge this lie, and through their malice the beliefs of
other people, subvert their own truths, or that the Seventy being Jews
also, and all shut up in one place (for Ptolemy had them assembled for
that purpose), should be unwilling that the Gentiles should enjoy their
scriptures, and put in those errors by a common consent ; who does not
see the more probable opinion? But God forbid that any wise man
should think that the Jews (however perverse) could have such power,
or so many and so widely scattered books, or that the Seventy had any
such common intent to conceal the truth of the history from the Gentiles,
One might more easily believe that the error was committed in the
transcription of the copy from Ptolemy’s library, and so that it hada
successive propagation through all the copies dispersed. This may well
be suspected indeed in Methuselah’s life, and in that other, where there
is four and twenty years’ difference in the whole sum. But in those
where the fault is continued, so that a hundred years in the one are still
overplus before the generations, and wanting after it, and in the other,
still wanting’ before, and overplus after, still agreeing in the main: and
this continued through the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and seventh
generation : this shews a constancy in error, and intimates rather indus-
trious endeavour to make it so, than any negligent omission to let it pass
so. So that this disparity in the Greek and Latin, from the Hebrew
where these years are first wanting, and then added, to procure the agree-
ment of the two, is neither to be ascribed to the Jews’ malice nor the
diligence of the translators of the Septuagint, but upon the transcriber’s
error that copied it first from Ptolemy’s library: for unto this very day,
numbers, where they are either hard to be understood, or seem to denote
a thing not very needful, they are negligently transcribed, and more negli-
gently corrected : for who thinks that he need learn how many thousand
there was in every tribe of Israel? It is held useless : how few are those
that can discern what use to make of such knowledge? But here, where in
all these generations, here wants a hundred years, and here is a hundred
too many: wanting, afterward when they exceeded before the birth of
such or such a son, and exceeding afterwards when they wanted before;

68 St Augustine.

he that did this, desiring to persuade us, that the fathers were to live so
long because the years were so short: and desiring to show that by
their maturity, when they were fit to generate: and hereby thinking to
persuade the incredulous, that a hundred of those years were but ten of
ours: this made him where he found an age which his account would
disable for generation, to add a hundred years, and after the generation
was past, to take it from the main sum of his days of life. For thus
he sought to show these ages convenient for generation (by his account)
and yet not to diminish from the true computation of their whole years.
Which because he did not in the sixth generation, this is that that
persuades us the rather to think that he did it where it needed, because
where it is not necessary, he adds not nor alters anything. For there
in the Hebrew he found that Jared lived a hundred and sixty-two years
before he begat Enoch, which time comes to sixteen years, two months,
and some odd days by his account, and that age is fit for generation, and
therefore he would not add a hundred here, to make them up twenty-
six of our years by his reckoning: nor would he detract anything from
the time of Jared after Enoch’s birth. This was that made the totals of
both books agree. Another opinion is because in the eighth genera-
tion before that Methuselah had begat Lamech, the Hebrews reading
one hundred eighty-two, our books have twenty years less, when we
generally find a hundred more: and after Lamech’s birth, they are
added again to make up the total, which is the same in both the
books. For if he would take a hundred and seventy years to be seven-
teen, because of the ability to get children: he should neither have
added nor subtracted anything from thence: for he found a time full
enough here, for want of which he was fain to add a hundred years else-
where. Wherefore we should verily think that this error of the twenty
years were occasioned by some fault in transcription, but that the sum
of ten is added to the grand total again, to make both books agree.
Shall we think it was cunning in him? to cover his addition and sub-
traction of those years when need was: by practising it also (not with
hundreds, but with less sums) where he needed not? whether we think
it was thus or no, or that the right is this or that, I do not question,
that the best course of all in all those controversies concerning computa-
tions, if the two books differ (seeing both cannot be true) is to believe
the original rather than the translation. For some of the Greek copies,
besides a Latin one, and a Syrian one, affirm that Methuselah died six
years before the deluge.

CHAPTER XIV.
Of the equal length of years as formerly measured and now.

Now let us see how plainly we can shew that ten of their years is not
one of ours, but one of their years as long as one of ours: both

Of the City of God. 69

finished by the course of the sun, and all their ancestors’ long lives
laid out by that reckoning. It is written that the flood happened the
threescore year of Noah’s age. But why do the Scriptures say : “In the
six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, and the
twenty-seventh day of the month,” if the year were but thirty-six days?
for so little a year must either have no months, or it must have but
three days in a month, to make twelve months in a year. How then
can it be said, “the six hundredth year, the second month, and the
twenty-seventh day of the month,” unless their months and years were
as ours are? How can it be otherwise said that the deluge happened
the twenty-seventh of the month? Again, at the end of the deluge it
is written: “In the seventh month and the twenty-seventh day of
the month, the ark rested upon Mount Ararat: and the waters de-
creased until the eleventh month: and in the eleventh month, on the first
day, were the tops of the mountains seen.” So then if they had such
months, their years were like ours: for a three-dayed month cannot have
twenty-seven days: or if they diminish all proportionably, and make
the thirteenth part of three days stand for one day, why then that great
deluge that continued increasing forty days and forty nights, lasted not
full four of our days. Who can endure this absurdity? Judge by this
error then those who seek to procure the Scriptures credit in one thing,
by falsifying itin many. The day without all question was as great then
as it is now, begun and ended in the compass of four and twenty hours:
the month as it is now, concluded in one performance of the moon’s
course : and the year asit is now, consummate in twelve lunary revolu-
tions, eastward, five days and a quarter more, being added for the pro-
portionating of it to the course of the sun. Six hundred of such years
had Noah lived, two such months and seven and twenty such days, when
the flood began, wherein the rain fell forty days continually, not days of
two hours and a piece, but of four and twenty hours with the night,
and therefore those fathers lived some of them nine hundred such
years, as Abraham lived but one hundred and eighty of : and his son
Isaac near a hundred and fifty, and such as Moses passed over to
the number of a hundred and twenty, and such as our ordinary men
now-a-days do live seventy or eighty of, or some few more, of which
it is said, “their overplus is but labour and sorrow.” For the dif-
ference of reckoning between us and the Hebrews does not concern the
length of the Patriarchs’ lives ; and where there is a difference between
them both that truth cannot reconcile, we must trust to the tongue
whence we have our translation. Which every man having power to
do, yet it is not for naught no man dares not adventure to correct that
which the Seventy have made different in their translation from the
Hebrew : for this diversity is no error, let no man think so: I do not:
but if there be no fault of the transcriber, it is to be thought that the
Holy Spirit meant to alter some things concerning the truth of the

70 St Augustine.

sense, and that by them, not according to the custom of interpreters,
but the liberty of prophets: and therefore, the apostles are found not
only to follow the Hebrews, but them also, in citing the Holy Scriptures.
But hereof (if God will) hereafter: now to our purpose. We may not
therefore doubt, that the first child of Adam living so long, might have
issue enough to people a city (an earthly one I mean, not that of God’s)
which is the principal ground of which this whole work treats.

CHAPTER XV.

Whether the men of old abstained from women until that the Scriptures
say they begat children.

But will some say, is it credible that a man should live eighty or ninety,
nay more than a hundred years, without a woman, and without purpose of
continency, and then commence begetting children as the Hebrews record
of them? or if they had pleased, could they not get children before? This
question has two answers, for either they lived longer immature than we
do, according to the length of time exceeding ours, or else (which is more
likely) their first-born are not reckoned, but only such as are requisite
for the drawing of a pedigree down from Adam unto Noah, from whom
we see a derivation to Abraham: and so until a certain period, as far
as those pedigrees were held fit to prefigure the course of God’s glorious
pilgrim city, until it ascend to eternity. It cannot be denied that Cain
was the first that ever was born of man and woman. For Adam would
not have said, “I have gotten a man from the Lord,” at his birth, but
that he was the first man born before the other two. Him, Abel was
next, whom the first or elder killed, and herein was prefigured what
persecutions God’s glorious city should endure at the hands of the
wicked members of the terrestrial society, those sons of earth, I may
call them. But how old Adam was at the begetting of these two, it is
not evident: from thence is a passage made to the generations of Cain,
and to his whom God gave Adam in murdered Abel’s seed, called Seth:
of whom it is written, “God hath appointed me another seed for Abel
whom Cain slew.” Seeing therefore that these two generations, Cain’s,
and Seth’s, do perfectly insinuate the two cities: the one celestial, and
labouring upon earth: the other earthly, and following our terrestrial
affections : there is not one of all Cain’s progeny, from Adam to the eighth
generation, whose age is set down when he begat his next son: yet is
his whole generation rehearsed: for the Spirit of God would not record
the times of the wicked before the deluge, but of the righteous only, as
only worthy. But when Seth was born, his father’s years were not for-
gotten, though he had begotten others before, as Cain and Abel 3 and
who dare say whether he had more besides them? for it does not
follow that they were all the sons he had, because they were only

Of the City of God. 71

named for the fit distinction of the two generations: for we read that he
had sons and daughters, all of whom are unnamed; who dare affirm how
many they were, without incursion of rashness? Adam might by God’s
instinct say at Seth’s birth, “God hath raised me up another seed for
Abel,” in that Seth was to fulfil Abel’s sanctity, not that he was born after
him by course of time. And whereas it is written, Seth lived one hundred
and five or two hundred and five years, and begot Enos, would any but
the heedless gather from hence that Enos was Seth’s first son, to give us
reason for wondering that Seth could live so long continent without
purpose of continency, or without use of the marriage bed, unto genera-
tion? for it is written of him, “ He begat sons and daughters, and the
days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years, and he died.” And
thus, the rest also that are named, are all recorded to have had sons
and daughters. But here is no proof that he that is named to be son to
any of them, should be their first son: nor is it credible that their fathers
lived all this while either immature, or unmarried, or without offspring,
nor that they were their father’s first born. But the Scripture intending
to descend by a genealogical scale from Adam unto Noah to the deluge,
recounted not the first born of every father, but only such as fell within
the compass of these two generations. Take this example, to clear all
further or future doubt: St Matthew the Evangelist, intending to record
the generation of the Man, Christ, beginning at Abraham, and descend-
ing down to David, “ Abraham,” says he, “begat Isaac:” why not
Ishmael? he was his first son? “Isaac begat Jacob:” why not Esau?
he was his first son too. The reason is, he could not descend by them
unto David. It follows: “Jacob begat Judah and his brethren.”
Why? was Judah his first born ? “‘ Judah begat Phares and Zara.” Why,
neither of these were Judah’s first sons; he had three before either of
them. So the Evangelist kept only the genealogy that descended directly
down to David, and so to his purpose. Hence may we therefore see
plain that the men’s first-born before the deluge, were not respected in ©
this account, but those only through whose loins the propagation passed
from Adam to Noah the Patriarch ; and thus the fruitless and obscure
question of their late maturity, is opened as far as is necessary: we will
not tire ourselves therein.

CHAPTER XVI.

Of the differing laws of marriage, which the first women might have from
after ages.

THEREFORE while mankind (after the forming of the first man out of
clay, and the first woman out of his side) needed the conjunction of male
and female, for propagation’s sake, it being impossible for man to be in-
creased but by such means, the brethren married the sisters: this was
lawful then. through the compulsion of necessity: but now it is as worthy

tes St Augustine.

of condemnation, through the prohibition of it in religion: for there was a
just care had of charity, that they to whom concord was most useful, might
be joined together in divers bonds of kindred and affinity: that one should
have many in one, but that every special relationship should be bestowed
among many, and so many, by as many, should be joined together in
honourable marriage. As, father, and father-in-law, are two names of
kindred : so if one have both of them, there is a larger extent of charity.
Adam is compelled to be both, unto his sons, and his daughters, who
were matched together, being brothers and sisters. So was Eve both
mother and step-mother to them both. But if there had been two
women for these two names, the love of charity had extended further :
the sister also here, that was made a wife, comprised two alliances in
herself, which, had they been divided and the sister to one, and wife to
another, the combination had taken in more persons than as now it
could, there being no mankind upon earth, but brothers and sisters, the
progeny of the first created. But it was necessarily right to end this as soon
as possible, and that then wives and sisters should be no more one : it
being no need, but great abomination to practise it any more. Fo /f the
first men’s grandsons, that married their cousins-german, had mérried
their sisters, there had been three alliances (not two) included “h one:
which three ought for the extension of love and charity to have been
communicated unto three several persons: for one man should be father,
step-father, and uncle unto his own children, brother and sister, should
they two marry together; and his wife would be mother, step-mother
and aunt unto them; and they themselves should be not only brother
and sister, but brother’s and sister’s children also. Now those alliances
that combine three men unto one, should conjoin nine persons together
in kindred and amity if they were severed: one may have one
his sister, another his wife, another his cousin, another his father,
another his uncle, another his step-father, another his mother,
another his aunt, and another his step-mother: thus were the social
amity scattered, and not gathered together all into two or three. And this
upon the world’s increase we may observe even in heathens and infidels,
that although some of their bestial laws allowed the brethren to marry
their sister, yet better custom abhorred this bad liberty: and although in
the world’s beginning it was lawful, yet they avoid it so now as if it had
never been lawful: for custom is a great matter to make a man hate or
affect anything: and custom herein suppressing the immoderate im-
modesty of concupiscence, has justly set a brand of ignominy upon it,
as an irreligious and inhuman act: for if it be a wrong to plough beyond
your boundary, for greediness of more ground : how far does this exceed
it, for lust of carnality to transgress all bound, nay, subvert all ground of
good manners? And we have observed that the matriage of first
cousins, because of the degree it holds next unto brother and sister, to
have been very rare in these later times of ours: and this now

Of the City of God. 73

because of good custom otherwise, though the laws allowed it, for the
law of God has not forbidden it, nor as yet has the law of man. But
this, although it were lawful, is avoided, because it isso near to that which
is unlawful: and that which one does with his cousin, he almost thinks
that he does with his sister: for these, because of their near consangui-
nity, are called brothers and sisters, and are indeed very near it. But
the patriarchs had a religious care to keep the kindred within such
limits, lest it should spread unto nothing: binding of it back again
into itself, when it was a little diffused, and calling it still to a new com-
bination in itself. And hereupon when the earth was well replenished
with men, they desired no more to marry brother unto sister, yet not-
withstanding each one desired a wife in his own kindred. But without
all question the prohibition of the marriages of first cousins, is very honest:
partly for the aforesaid reasons, because one person therein shall have
two alliances, which two ought rather to have, for the increase of affinity :
and partly because there is a certain laudable natural instinct in a man’s
samefacedness, to abstain from using that lust (though it tend unto
propagation) upon such as propinquity has bound him chastely to
respect, seeing that blameless wedlock is ashamed of this very act. In
respect of mankind, therefore, the coupling of man and woman is the .
seminary of a city: and the earthly city needs only this, marry, the
heavenly city needs a further matter, called regeneration, to avoid the
corruption of the first generation. But whether there were any sign, or
at least any corporal or visible sign of regeneration before the deluge, or
until circumcision was commended unto Abraham, the Scripture does
not manifest. That these first men sacrificed unto God, Holy Writ
declares, as in the two first brethren, and in Noah, after the deluge,
when he came out of the ark, he is said to offer unto God. But of this
we have spoken already, to shew that the devils desire to be accounted
gods, and offered unto, only for this end, because they know that true
sacrifice is due to none but the true God.

CHAPTER XVII.
Of the two heads and princes of the two cities, born both of one father.

Apam therefore being the father of both the races belonging to the
earthly and heavenly city, and Abel being slain, and in his death a
wonderful mystery commended unto us; Cain and Seth became the
heads of the two parties: in whose sons such as are named, the two
cities began to shew themselves upon earth, in mankind: for Cain begot
Enoch, and built an earthly city after his name, no such city as should
be a pilgrim in this earthly world, but an enjoyer of the terrestrial peace.
Cain is interpreted, ‘ Possession,’ whereupon either his father or his mother
at his birth said, “I have gotten a man by God.” Enoch is interpreted,

74, St Augustine.

‘Dedication:’ for the earthly city is dedicated here below where it is’
built: for here is the scope and end that it affects and aims at. Now
Seth is called, ‘ Resurrection,’ and Enos his son is called, ‘ Man,’ not as
Adam was: for Adam is man, but in the Hebrew it is common to male
and female: for it is written: ‘“‘Male and female made He them, and
called their name Adam:” so that Eve doubtless was not so properly
called Eve, but that Adam was a name indifferent to them both. But
Enos is so properly a man, that it excludes all womankind (as the
Hebrew linguists affirm), as importing the son of the resurrection, where
they shall not marry, nor take a wife. For regeneration shall exclude
generation from thence. Therefore I hold this no idle note, that in the
whole generation drawn from Seth there is not one woman named as
begctten in this generation. For thus we read it: Mathusael begat
Lamech, and Lamech took unto him two wives: Adah and Zillah, and
Adah bare Jabal, the father of such as lived in tents and were keepers
of cattle: and his brother’s name was Jubal, who was the father of
musicians. And Zillah also bare Tubal, who wrought in brass and iron:
and the sister of Tubal was Naamah. Thus far is Cain’s generation
recited, being eight from Adam, with Adam seven to Lamech that had
these two wives, and the eighth in his sons, whose sisters are also
reckoned. This is eminently worthy of remark, that the earthly city shall
have carnal generations until it end: such I mean as proceed from the
copulation of male and female. And therefore the wives of him that is the
last father here are named by their proper names, and so are none besides
them before the deluge, except Eve. But even as Cain is interpreted
‘ Possession,’ of the earthly city’s founder, and Enoch his son, interpreted
‘Dedication,’ who gave the city his name, shew that it is to have both
an earthly beginning and ending, in which there is no hope but of
things of this world: so likewise Seth is interpreted, the ‘ Resurrection,’
who being the father of the other generations, we must see what Holy
Writ delivers concerning his son.

CHAPTER XVIII.

That the signification of Abel, Seth, and Enos are all pertinent unto
Christ and His body, the Church.

AND Seth (says the Scripture) had a son, and he called his name Enos.
This man hoped to call upon the name of the Lord, for, says the truth,
it is true that the son of the resurrection lives in hope: all the while that
he continues in his pilgrimage here below, together with the City of
God, which arises out of the faith of Christ’s resurrection: for by these
two men, Abel, interpreted ‘ Sorrow,’ and Seth, ‘ Resurrection,’ is the
death and rising again of Christ prefigured, from which faith the City of
God has its rising, namely in these men that hoped to call upon the Lord

Of the City of God. 75

God. For we are saved by hope, says the Apostle. ‘ But hope which
is seen is no hope; for hopeth he for that he seeth? but if we hope for
that which we see not, then do we with patience wait for it:” who can
say that this does not concern the depth of this mystery? Did not
Abel hope to call upon the name of the Lord God when his sacrifice
was so acceptable unto Him? And did not Seth so also, of whom it is
said, ‘God hath appointed me another seed for Abel”? Why then is
this peculiarly bound unto Seth’s time, in which is understood the time
of all the godly, but that it behoved that in him who is first recorded to
have been born, to elevate his spirit from his father that begot him unto
a better father, the King of the celestial country, man, that is, that
society of man, who live in the hope of blessed eternity, not according
to man, but God, be prefigured? It is not said, ‘“‘ He hoped in God :”
nor “he called upon God :” but “he hoped to call upon God.” Why
hoped to call? but that it is a prophecy that from him should arise a
people who by the election of grace should call upon the name of the
Lord God. ‘This is that which the Apostle has from another poet, and
shows it to pertain unto the grace of God, saying, “ Whosoever shall
call upon the name of the Lord, shall be saved.” ‘This is that which is
said, “He called his name Enos” (which is, man), and then is added,
“This man hoped to call upon the name of the Lord:” wherein is
plainly shown that man ought not to put his trust in himself. For
“Cursed is the man that trusteth in man,” as we read elsewhere, and
consequently in himself: which if he do not, he may become a citizen
of that city which is founded above in the eternity of bliss, not of that
which Cain built and named after his son, being of this world, wavering
and transitory.

CHAPTER XIX.
What the translation of Enoch signified.

For Seth’s progeny has that name of dedication also for one of the sons,
the seventh from Adam, who was called Enoch, and was the seventh of
that generation: but he was translated, or taken up because he pleased
God, and lived in that famous number of the generation whereupon the
Sabbath was sanctified, namely, the seventh from Adam: and from the
first distinctions of the generations in Cain and Seth, the sixth: in
which number man was made, and all God’s works perfected. The
translation of this Enoch is the prefiguration of our dedication which is
already performed in Christ, who rose from death to die no more, and
was taken up also. The other dedication of the whole house remains
yet, whereof Christ is the foundation, and this is deferred until the end,
and final resurrection of all flesh to die no more. We may call it the
house of God, the Church of God, or the City of God: the phrase will
be borne. Virgil called Rome house of Assaracus, because the Romans

76 = St Augustine.

were descended from Troy and the Trojans from Assaracus: and he
calls it the house of Aineas, because he led the Trojans into Italy, and
they built Rome: thus the poet imitated the Scriptures, that calls the
populous nations of the Hebrews the house of Jacob.

CHAPTER XxX.

Concerning Cain's succession, being but eight from Adam, whereas Noah
ts the tenth.

Avy, but (say some), if the Scripture meant only to descend down from
Adam to Noah in the deluge, and from him to Abraham, where Matthew
the Evangelist began the generation of the King of the Heavenly city,
Christ, what meant it to meddle with Cain’s succession? I answer, It
meant to descend down to the deluge by Cain’s progeny, and then was
the earthly city utterly consumed, though it were afterwards repaired by
Noah’s sons. For the society of these worldlings shall never be a-want-
ing until the world’s end: of whom the Scripture saith, “The children
of this world marry and are given in marriage.” But it is regeneration
that takes the City of God from the pilgrimage of this world, and places
it in the other, where the sons neither may nor are married. Thus, then,
generation is common to both the cities here on earth: though the City
of God have many thousands that abstain from generation, and the other
hath some citizens that do imitate these, and yet go astray: for unto
this city do the authors of all heresies belong, as livers according to the
world, not after God’s prescription. The Gymnosophists of India, living
naked in the deserts, are of this society also: and yet abstain from
generation. For this abstinence is not good, unless it be in the faith of
God, that great good. Yet we do not find any that professed it before
the deluge, Enoch himself the seventh from Adam, whom God took up,
and suffered not to die, had sons and daughters, of whom Methuselah
was the man through whom the generation passed downwards. But why
then are so few of Cain’s generations named, if they were to be counted
down to the flood, and their length of years hindered not their maturity,
which continued a hundred or more years without children? for if the
author intended not to draw down this progeny unto one man, as he
does to Noah in Seth’s, and so to proceed, why omitted he the first-
born to come unto Lamech, in whose time their conjunction was made,
in the eighth generation from Adam, and the seventh from Cain, as if
there were somewhat more to be added, for the descent down, either
unto the Israelites (whose terrestrial city Jerusalem was a type of the
City of God), or down unto Christ’s birth in the flesh (who is that
eternal God and blessed Founder and Ruler), while Cain’s posterity were
abolished? Whereby we may see that the first-born were reckoned in
this recital of the offspring: why are they so few then? So few there

Of the City of God. 77

could not be, unless the length of their father’s ages stayed them from
maturity a hundred years at the least. For to admit that they begun
all alike to beget children at thirty years of age: eight times thirty (for
there are eight generations from Adam to Lamech’s children inclusively)
is two hundred and forty: did they beget no children then, all the
residue of the time before the deluge? what was the cause then that
this author does not mention the rest: for our books account from Adam
to the deluge two thousand two hundred and sixty-two years, and the
Hebrews one thousand six hundred and fifty-six. To allow the lesser
number for the truer, take two hundred and forty from one thousand
six hundred and fifty-six, and there remains one thousand four hundred
and sixteen years. Is it likely that Cain’s offspring had no children all
this time? But let him whom this troubles observe what I said before,
when the question was put, how it were credible that the first men
could forbear generation so long: it was answered two ways: either
because of their late maturity, proportioned to their length of life: or
because that they which were reckoned in the descents were not neces-
sarily the first born, but such only as conveyed the generation of Seth
through themselves down unto Noah.

And therefore if in Cain’s posterity no one occurs whom there
would be special reason for mentioning (omitting the first born, and in-
cluding only such as were needful, might descend) we must impute it
to the lateness of maturity, whereby they were not enabled to generation
until they were above one hundred years old, that so the generation
might still pass through the first born, and so descending through these
multitudes of years, meet with the flood: I cannot tell, there may be
some more secret course why the earthly city’s generation should be
rejected until Lamech and his sons, and then the rest unto the deluge
wholly suppressed by the author. And (to avoid this late maturity) the
reason why the pedigree descends not by the first born may be because
Cain might reign long in his city of Enoch: and beget many kings
who might each beget a son to reign in his own stead. Of these Cain,
I say, might be the first: Enoch his son the next: (for whom the city
was built that he might reign, there:) Irad the son of Enoch the
third: Mehujael the son of Irad the fourth, Methusael the son of
Mehujael the fifth: Lamech the son of Methusael the sixth, and this
man is the seventh from Adam by Cain. Now it follows not that each
of these should be their father’s first begotten; their merits, virtue,
policy, chance, or indeed their father’s love might easily enthrone them.
And the deluge might befall in Lamech’s reign, and drown both him
and all on earth but for those in the ark: for the diversity of their ages
might make it no wonder, that there should be but seven generations
from Adam by Cain to the deluge, and ten, by Seth: Lamech as I said
being the seventh from Adam, and Noah the tenth, and therefore,
Lamech is not said to have one son, but many, because it is uncertain

78 St Augustine.

who should have succeeded him, had he died before the deluge. But
howsoever Cain’s race be recorded, by kings, or by eldest sons, this
I may not omit, that Lamech, the seventh from Adam, had as many
children as made up eleven, the number of prevarication. For he had
three sons and one daughter (his wives have a reference to another
thing not here to be stood upon). For here we speak of descents : (but
theirs is unknown.) Wherefore seeing that the law lies in the number
- of ten, as the ten commandments testify, eleven overgoing ten in one,
signifies the transgression of the law, or sin. Hence it is that “there
were eleven hair-cloth veils made for the tabernacle, or movable temple
of God” during the Israelites’ travels. For in hair-cloth is the remem-
brance of sin included, because of the goats that shall be set on the
left hand: for in repentance we prostrate ourselves in hair-cloth, saying
as it is in the Psalm, “ My sin is ever before Thee.” So then the
line of Adam by wicked Cain, ends in the eleventh, the number of
sin: and the last that consummates the number, is a woman, in whom
that sin began, for which we are all death’s slaves: and which was com-
mitted, that disobedience unto the spirit, and carnal desires might take
place in us. For Naamah, Lamech’s daughter, is interpreted “ beautiful
pleasure.” But from Adam to Noah by Seth, ten, the number of the
law, is consummate: unto which Noah’s three sons are added two their
father blessed, and the third fell off: that the reprobate being rejected,
and the elect added to the whole, twelve, the number of the patriarchs
and apostles might herein be intimated : which is glorious because of the
multiplication of the parts of seven producing it: for four times three,
or three times four is twelve. This being so, it remains to discuss how
these two progenies distinctly intimating the two Cities, of the reprobate
and the regenerate, came to be so commixed and confused, that all
mankind except eight persons, deserved to perish in the deluge.

CHAPTER XXI.

Why the generation of Cain is continued down along from the naming of
his son Enoch, whereas the Scripture having named Enos, Seth's son,
goes back again to begin Seth’s generation at Adam,

But first we must see the reason why Cain’s generation is drawn out along
to the deluge, from the naming of his son Enoch, who was named before
all his other posterity, and yet when Seth’s son Enos is born, the author
does not proceed downward to the flood, but goes back to Adam in this
manner: “This is the book of the generation of Adam, in the day that God
created Adam, in the likeness of God made He him, male and female
created He them and blessed them, and called their name Adam that
day that they were created.” This I hold is interposed, to go back to
Adam, from him to reckon the times: which the author would not do in his

Of the City of God. 79

description of the earthly city: as also God remembered that without
respecting the account. But why returns he to this recapitulation after
he has named the righteous son of Seth, who hoped to call upon the
name of the Lord : but that he will lay down the two cities in this manner :
one by an homicide until he come to an homicide (for Lamech con-
fesses unto his two wives that he had been an homicide) and the other
by him that hoped to call upon the name of the Lord. For the princi-
pal business that God’s city has in this pilgrimage upon earth, is that
which was commended in that one man, who was appointed a seed for
him that was slain. For in him only, was the unity of the supernal
city, not really complete, mystically comprised: wherefore the son of
Cain, the son of ‘ Possession,’ what shall he have but the name of the
earthly city on earth, which was built in his name? Hereof sings the
Psalmist : “‘ They have called their lands after their own names”: where-
upon that follows which he says elsewhere: ‘‘ Thou, O Lord, in Thy city
shalt bring their image to nothing.” But let the son of the ‘ Resurrec-
tion,’ Seth’s son, hope to call upon the Lord’s name, for He is a type of
that society that says: “I am like a green olive in the house of God,
for I trusted in His mercy.” And let him not seek vainglory upon
earth, for “ Blessed is the man that maketh the Lord his trust: and
regardeth not vanity, and false fondness.”

Thus the two cities are described to be seated: the one in worldly

possession, the other in heavenly hope, both coming out at the common —

gate of mortality, which was opened in Adam, out of whose condemned
race, as out of a putrified lump, God elected some vessels of mercy
and some of wrath: giving due pains unto the one, and undue grace
unto the other, that the citizens of God upon earth may take this lesson
from those vessels of wrath, never to rely on their own election but hope
to call upon the name of the Lord: because the natural will which God
made (but yet here the Unchangeable made it not changeless) may both
decline from Him that is good, and from all good, to do evil, and that
by freedom of will; and from evil also to do good, but that not without
God’s assistance.

CHAPTER XXII.

Of the fall of the sons of God by loving strange women, whereby all (but
eight) perished,

Tuis freedom of will increasing and partaking with iniquity, produced a
confused commixion of both cities: and this mischief arose from woman
also: but not as the first did, for the women now did not seduce men
to sin, but the daughters that had been of the earthly city from the be-
ginning, and of evil conditions, were beloved of the citizens of God for
their bodily beauty, which is indeed a gift of God, but given to the evil
also, lest the good should imagine it of any such great worth. Thus

80 St Augustine.

was the greatest good only pertaining to the good left, and a declination
made unto the least good, that is common to the bad also, and thus the
sons of God were taken with the love of the daughters of men, and fox
their sakes, fell into the society of the earthly, leaving the piety that the
holy society practised. And thus was carnal beauty (a gift of good in-
deed, but yet a temporal, base, and transitory one) sinfully elected and
loved before God, that eternal, internal, and sempeternal good ; just as
the covetous man forsakes justice and loves gold, the gold being not
in fault but the man: even so is it in all other creatures. They are
all good, and may be loved well, or badly: well, when our love is
moderate ; badly, when it is inordinate: as one wrote in praise of the
Creator—
“ Hee tua sunt, bona sunt, quia tu bonus ista creasti,
Nil nostrum est in eis, nisi quod peccamus amantes,
Ordine neglecto pro te quod conditur abste.”
‘ These are Thy goods, for Thou (Chief Good) didst make them,
Not ours, yet seek we them instead of Thee:
Perverse desire the motive to misuse them.’

But we love the Creator truly, that is, if He be beloved for Himself,
and nothing that is not of His essence beloved, for of Him we cannot
love anything amiss. For that very love, whereby we love that is to be
loved, is itself to be moderately loved in ourselves, as being a virtue
directing us in honest courses. And therefore I think that the best and
briefest definition of virtue be this, it is an order of love: for which
Christ’s spouse the City of God says in the holy Canticles: “ He hath
ordered his love in me.” This order of love did the sons of God break,
neglecting Him, and running after the daughters of men: in which two
names both the cities are fully distinguished: for they were the sons of
men by nature, but grace had given them a new style. For in the same
Scripture, where it is said that, “ The sons of God loved the daughters
of men,” they are also called the angels of God. Whereupon some
thought them to be angels and not men that did thus.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Whether it be credible that the angels being of an incorporeal nature, should
lust after the women of earth, and marrying them, beget giants
of them.

Tuis question we touched at in our third book, but left it undiscussed,
whether the angels, being spirits, could have carnal knowledge of
women: for it is written, “He maketh His angels spirits:” that is,
those that are spirits, He makes His angels, by sending them on
messages as he please: for the Greek word déyyapos, which the Latins
call “ Angelus,” is interpreted ‘a messenger.’ But whether he meant of

Of the City of God. 81

their bodies, when he added: “ And his ministers a flaming fire,” or
that he intimate that God’s ministers should burn with fiery zeal and
charity, it is doubtful: yet do the Scriptures plainly aver that the angels
have appeared both in visible and palpable figures. And seeing it is so
general a report, and so many aver it either from their own experience
or from others, that are of indubitable honesty and credit, that the
sylvans and fawns, commonly called incubi, have often injured women,
desiring and acting carnally with them: and that certain devils whom
the Gauls call “ Duses,” do continually practice this uncleanness, and
tempt others to it, which is affirmed by such persons, and with such
confidence that it were impudence to deny it. I dare not venture to
determine anything here: whether the devils being imbodied in air (for
this air being violently moved is to be felt) can suffer this lust, or move
itso as the women with whom they commix, may feel it: yet do I firmly
believe that God’s angels could never fall so at that time: nor that the
Apostle Peter did allude to them when he said: “If God spared not the
angels that had sinned, but cast them down into hell, and delivered
them into chains of darkness to be kept unto damnation :” but rather
of those that turned apostates with the devil their prince at first, in him
I mean that deceived mankind in the serpent. That men were also
called the angels of God, the Scripture testifies also, saying of John:
* Behold, I send mine angel before Thy face which shall prepare the
way before Thee.” And Malachi the prophet bya peculiar grace given
him, was called an angel. But some stick at this, that in this commix-
ion of them that were called God’s angels with the women of earth
there were giants begotten and borne: as though we have no such
extraordinary huge statured creatures even in these our times. Was
there not a woman of late at Rome, with her father and mother, a little
before it was sacked by the Goths, that was of a giant-like height in
respect of all other? It was wonderful to see the concourse of those
that came to see her, and she was the more admired, in that her parents
exceeded not our tallest ordinary stature. Therefore there might be
giants born before the sons of God (called also His angels) had any
carnal confederacy with the daughters of men—such I mean, as lived in
the fleshly course: that is, ere the sons of Seth meddled with the
daughters of Cain, for the Scripture in Genesis says thus, “So when
men were multiplied upon earth, and there were daughters borne unto
them, the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair,
and they took them wives of all that they liked.” Therefore the Lord
said, “My spirit shall not alway strive with man: because he is but
flesh, and his days shall be a hundred and twenty years. There were
giants in the earth in those days, yea and after that the sons of God
came unto the daughters of men, and they had borne them children,
these were giants, and in old time were men of renown.” These words
of Holy Writ shew plainly that there were giants upon earth when the
=

82 St Augustine.

sons of God took the fair daughters of men to be their wives, for the
Scripture use to call that which is fair, good. But there were giants,
born after this: for it says, ‘“‘ There were giants upon earth in those
days,” and after that “the sons of God came in unto the daughters of
men :” so that there were giants both then and before: and whereas it
says, “They begot unto themselves,” this shews that they had begotten
children unto God before, and not unto themselves, that is, not for lust,
but for their duty of propagation, nor to make themselves up any flaunt-
ing family, but to increase the citizens of God, whom they (like God’s
angels) instructed to ground their hope on Him, as the Son of the
‘ Resurrection,’ Seth’s son, did, who hoped to call upon the name of the
Lord : in which hope, he and all his sons might be sons and heirs ot
life everlasting. But we may not take them to be such angels as were
no men: men they were without doubt, and so says the Scripture :
which having first said, “ The angels of God saw the daughters of men
that they were good, and they took them wives of all whom they liked :”
adds presently, “‘And the Lord said, My Spirit shall not alway strive
with man: because he is but flesh.” For His Spirit made them His
angels, and sons, but they declined downwards, and therefore He called
them men, by nature, not by grace: and flesh, being the forsaken
forsakers of the Spirit. The Septuagint calls them the angels and sons
of God: some books call them only the sons of God, leaving
out angels: but Aquila, whom the Jews prefer before all, calls
them neither, but the sons of gods: both is true, for they were
both the sons of God, and by His patronage, the brethren of
their fathers: and they were the sons of the gods: as born
of the gods, and their equals, according to that of the Psalm:
‘I have said ye are gods, and ye are all the sons of the Most High,”
for we do worthily believe that the Seventy had the spirit of prophecy,
and that whatsoever they altered is set down according to the truth
~ of divinity, not after the pleasure of translators, yet the Hebrew, they

say, is doubtful, and may be interpreted either the “sons of God,” or
“‘of gods.” Therefore let us omit the Scriptures that are called Apocrypha,
because the old fathers of whom we had the Scriptures, knew not the
authors of those works, wherein though there be some truths, yet their
multitude of falsehoods makes them of no canonical authority. Some
Scriptures questionless were written by Enoch the seventh from Adam
as the canonical Epistle of Jude records: but it is not for nothing
that they were left out of the Hebrew canon which the priests kept in
the temple. The reason was, their antiquity procured a suspicion that
they were not truly divine, and an uncertainty whether Enoch were
the author or no: seeing that such as should have given them their
credit unto posterity never named them. And therefore those books
that go in his name and contain those stories of the giants that their
fathers were no men, are by good judgments held to be none of his:

Of the City of God. 83

but counterfeit, as the heretics have done many, under the names of the
apostles and prophets, which were all afterward examined, and thrust
from canonical authority. But according to the Hebrew canonical
Scriptures, there is no doubt that there were giants upon the earth
before the deluge, and that they were the sons of the men of earth, and
citizens of the carnal city, unto which the sons of God, being Seth’s in
the flesh, forsaking righteousness, adjoined themselves. Nor is it strange
if they begot giants. They were not all giants, but there were far more
before the deluge, than have been since: whom it pleased the Creator
to make, that we might learn that a wise man should neither respect
hugeness of body nor fairness of face: but find his blessedness in the
undecaying, spiritual and eternal goods that are peculiar to the good,
and not that he shares with the bad: which another commends to
us, saying: “There were the giants famous from the beginning that
were of so great stature and so expert in war. These did not the Lord
choose, neither gave He the way of knowledge unto them: but they
were destroyed because they had no wisdom, and perished through their
own foolishness.”

CHAPTER XXIV.

How the words that God spake of those that were to perish in the deluge:
“‘ and their days shall bea hundred and twenty years,” are to be under-

stood.

But whereas God said: “Their days shall be a hundred and twenty
years,” we must not take it as though it were a forewarning, that
none after that should live above that time, for many after the deluge
lived five hundred years. But it is to be understood that God spoke
this about the end of Noah’s five hundred years, that is, when he was
four hundred and fourscore years old, which the Scripture ordinarily
calls five hundred, taking the greatest part for the whole: for in the
six hundredth year of Noah, and the second month, the flood began, and
so the hundred and twenty years were passed, at the end of which man-
kind was to be universally destroyed by the deluge. Nor is it fruitless
to believe that the deluge came thus, when there were none left on
earth, that were not worthy of such a death: not that a good man dying
such a death should be a jot the worse for it after it is past. But of
all those of Seth’s line whom the Scripture names, there was not one
that died by the deluge. This flood the Scripture says grew upon this:
“‘The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and
all the imaginations of his heart were only and continually evil: and He
revolved in His heart how He had made man in the earth, and said: I
will destroy from the face of the earth the man whom I have made, from
man to beast, and, from the creeping things to the fowls of the air, for
I am angry that I have made them.”

84 . St Augustine.

CHAPTER XXV.
Of God's anger without passion or change.

Gop’s anger is no disturbance of mind in Him, but His judgment
assigning sin the deserved punishment: and His revolving of thought
is an unchanged ordering of changeable things: for God repents not
of anything He does, as man does: but His knowledge of a thing ere it
be done, and His thought of it when it is done, are both alike firm and
fixed. But the Scripture without these phrases cannot instil into our
understandings the meaning of God’s works, nor terrify the proud, nor
stir up the idle, nor exercise the inquirers, nor delight the understanders.
This it cannot do without declining to our low capacities. And whereas
it relates the future destruction of beasts, and birds, it shows us the
greatness of the dissolution, but does not threaten it unto the irrational
creation as if they had sinned.

CHAPTER XXVI.
Lhat Noah's ark signifies Christ and His Church in all things.

Now whereas Noah being (as the truth says) a just man in his time, and
perfect in his generation (yet not as the citizens of God shall be perfect in
that immortality wherein they shall equalise the angels, but perfect as a
mortal pilgrim of God may be uponearth), was commanded by God to build
an ark, wherein he, his family, and the creatures which God commanded
to come into the ark unto him, might be saved from the waters: this
verily is a figure of God’s City here upon earth, that is, His Church
which is saved by wood, that is, by that whereupon Christ the Mediator
between God and man was crucified : for the dimensions of the length,
depth and breadth of the ark, do signify man’s body, in which the
- Saviour was prophesied to come, and did so: for the length of man’s body

from head to foot, is six times his breadth from side to side: and ten
times his thickness measuring perpendicularly from back to front: lay a
man along and measure him, and you shall find his length from head
to foot to contain his breadth from side to side six times, and his height
from the earth whereon he lies, ten times, whereupon the ark was made
300 cubits long, 50 broad, and 30 deep. And the door in the side was
the wound that the soldier’s spear made in our Saviour, for by this do
all men go in unto Him: for thence came the sacraments of the
faithful: and the ark being made all of square wood, signifies the
unmoved constancy of the saints: for cast a cube, or square body which
way you will, it will ever stand firm. So all the rest that concerned the
building of this ark, were types of ecclesiastical matters. But here we have
no time to spend on them: we have done so already, against Faustus
the Manichee, who denied that the Old Testament had any prophetical

Of the Citv of God. 85

_ thing concerning Christ. It may be one may take this one way, and

another another way: so that all be referred to the Holy City where-
upon we discourse, which as I say often laboured here in this terrestial
pilgrimage: otherwise he shall go far from his meaning that wrote it.
As for example, if anyone will not expound this place: make it with the
lowest, second, and third rooms: as I do in that work against Faustus,
namely, that because the Church is gathered out of all nations, it had
two rooms, for the two sorts of men circumcised and uncircumcised,
whom the apostle otherwise calls Jews and Greeks: and it had three
rooms, because all the world descended from Noah’s three sons, after
the flood: if anyone like not this exposition, let him follow his own
pleasure, so he control not the true rule of faith in it: for the ark
had rooms below and rooms above, and therefore was called double-
roomed : and it had rooms above those upper rooms, and so was called
triple-roomed, being three storeys high. In these may be meant the
three things that the apostles praise so: faith, hope, and charity: or
(and that far more fitly) the three evangelical increases: thirty-fold,
sixty-fold, and an hundred-fold: chaste marriage dwelling in the first :
chaste widowhood in the second: and chaste virginity in the highest of
all: thus, or otherwise may this be understood, ever respecting the
reference it has to this Holy City. And so I might say of the other
things here to be expounded: which although they have more than one
exposition, yet all they have must be liable to one rule of concordance
with the Catholic faith.

CHAPTER XXVII.

Of the ark, and the deluge, that the meaning thereof is neither merely
historical, nor merely allegorical.

Bur let none think that these things were written only to relate an
historical truth without any typical reference to anything else: or con-
trariwise, that there were no such things really acted, but that it is all
allegorical : or that whatsoever it is, it is of no use, nor includes any
prophetical meaning concerning the Church; for who but an atheist
will say, that these books are of no use, which have been so religiously
kept, and so carefully delivered from one age to another, so many
thousand years together? or that they are only historical, when (to let
all the rest pass) the bringing in of the unclean creatures by pairs, and

the clean by sevens, must needs have some other meaning, for they

might have been preserved had they been but pairs, as well as the other.

~ Could not God, that taught this means of reinstoration, re-pair them as

Tew

He had created them? And now for those that say that all this was
but mystical only, first they imagine it impossible that any flood should
become so huge as to exceed the height of any mountain fifteen cubits,
because of the top of Mount Olympus which, they say, reaches above

86 St Augustine.

the clouds, and is as high as heaven, so that the thicker air that engen-
ders winds and rain cannot mount so high: never observing in the
mean space, that the grossest element of all, the earth, can lie so high:
or will they say the top of this mountain is not earth? no, why then do
those bad proportionators allow the earth to lie so high, and yet deny
the water to mount higher, averring notwithstanding that the water is
higher and of a more ability to ascend than the earth? what reason can
they show why earth should hold so high a place in air, for thus many
thousand years and yet that water may not arise to the same height for
a little space? They say also that the ark was too little to hold such a
number of creatures, seven of every clean one, and two of every un-
clean one. It seems they make account only of three hundred cubits
in length, fifty in breadth, and thirty in depth, never marking that every
room therein was of this size, making the whole ark to be nine hundred
cubits in length, one hundred and fifty in breadth, and ninety in depth
or height. And if that be true that Origen elegantly proves, that
Moses (being learned (as it is written) in all the wisdom of the Egyp-
tians, who were great geometricians) meant of a geometrical cubit in
this case, one of which make six of ours, who sees not what a huge
deal of rooms lieth within this measure? for when they say that an
ark of such greatness could no way be built, they talk idly, for huger
cities than this ark have been built: and they never consider the hun-
dred years that it was a-building in, throughout: unless they will say
that one stone may be bound fast unto another by lime only, and walls
on this manner be carried out so many miles in compass, and yet timber
cannot be fastened unto timber by mortices, bolts, nails and pitch,
whereby an ark might be made, not with embowed ribs, but in a
straight lineal form, not to be launched into the sea by the strength of
men, but lifted from earth by the natural force of the waters themselves,
having God’s providence, rather than man’s practice, both for steersman
and pilot. And for their scrupulous question concerning the vermin,
mice, lizards, locusts, hornets, flies and fleas, whether there were any
more of them in the ark than there should be by God’s command?
they that are concerned at this question ought first to consider this :
that such things as might live in the waters, needed not to be brought
into the ark: so might both the fishes that swam in the water, and
divers birds also that swam above it.

And whereas it is said, “They shall be male and female,” that
concerns the reparation of kind: and therefore such creatures as do
not generate, but are produced themselves out of mere putrefaction,
needed not be there: if they were, it was as they are now in our houses,
without any known number, if the greatness of this holy mystery in-
cluded in this true and real act, could not be perfected without there
were the same order of nnmber kept in all those creatures, which nature
would not permit to live within the waters, that care belonged not unto

Of the City of God. 87

man, but unto God. For Noah did not take the creatures and turn
them into the ark, but God sent them in all, he only suffered them to
enter: for so says the book: “Two of every sort shall come unto
thee :” not by his fetching, but by God’s bidding: yet may we well
hold that none of the creatures that want sex were there: for it is pre-
cisely said, “ They shall be male and female.” There are creatures
that arising out of corruption, do afterwards engender, as flies; and
some also without sex, as bees: some also that have sex and yet en-
gender not, as he-mules and she-mules: it is probable they were not in
the ark, but that their parents, the horse and the ass, served to produce
them afterwards : and so likewise of all other creatures begotten between
divers kinds. But if this concerned the mystery, there they were, for
they were male and female.

Some also scruple at the diversity of meats that they had, and what they
ate, that could eat nothing but flesh : and whether there were any more
creatures there than was in the command, that the rest might feed upon
them: or rather (which is more likely) that there were some other meats
besides flesh, that contented them. For we see many creatures that
eat flesh, eat fruits also, and apples, chiefly figs and chestnuts: what
wonder then if God had taught this just man to prepare a meat for every
creature’s eating, and yet not flesh? what will not hunger make one eat ?
And what cannot God make wholesome, and delightsome to the taste,
who might make them (if He pleased) to live without any meat at all:
but that it was befitting to the perfection of this mystery that they should
be fed? And thus all men, but those that are obstinate, are bound to
believe that each of these manifold circumstances, had a figuration con-
cerning the Church: for the Gentiles have now so filled the Church
with clean and unclean, and shall do so until the end, and now are all
so enclosed in those ribs, that it is unlawful to make stop at those inferior
(although obscurer) ceremonies, which being so, if no man may cither
think these things are written to no end: nor as bare and insignificant
relations, nor as sole unacted allegories, nor as discourses not concerning
to the Church; but each ought rather to believe that they are written
in wisdom, and are both true histories, and mystical allegories, all con-
cerning the prefiguration of the Church ; then this book is brought unto
an end: and from hence we are to proceed with the progress of both
our cities, the one celestial, and that is God’s, and the other terrestrial,
and that is man’s, touching both which, we must now observe what fell
out after the deluge.

Eh SRONGONOuoNe

THE
SIXTEENTH BOOK OF THE CITY OF GOD.

70:

CHAPTER I.

Whether there be any families of God's citizens named between Noah and
Abraham.

ape find in the evidences of holy writ whether the glorious city of God

continued on in a good course after the deluge, or through the
second inundation of impiety was so interrupted, as God’s religion lay
wholly unrespected, is a very difficult matter: because that in all the canon-
ical Scriptures, after that Noah and his three sons with his and their wives
were saved by the ark from their deluge, we cannot find any one person
until Abraham’s time, evidently commended for his piety : only Noah’s
prophetical blessing of his two sons, Shem and Japheth, we do see, and
know that he knew what was to follow a long time after. Whereupon
he cursed his middlemost son, (who had offended him) not in himself,
he laid not, I say, the curse upon himself, but upon his grand-child, say-
ing, ‘‘ Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be unto his
brethren.” This Canaan was Ham’s son, his that did not cover, but
" rather uncovered, his father’s nakedness. And then did he second this,

with a blessing upon his eldest sons, saying : “ Blessed be the Lord God
of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant. The Lord make Japheth re-
joice that he may dwell in the tents of Shem :” all which, together with
Noah’s planting a vineyard, being drunken with the wine, and uncovered
in his sleep, all those circumstances have their prophetical interpretations
and mystical references,

CHAPTER II.
What prophetic mysteries were in the sons of Noah.

Bur their true event has now cleared their former obscurity : for what
diligent observer sees them not all in Christ? Shem, of whose seed
Christ’s humanity came, is interpreted, ‘Named.’ And who is more

Of the City of God. 89

named than Christ, whose name is now so fragrant that the prophetical.
Canticle compares it “to an ointment poured forth:” in whose houses,
that is, in whose churches, the diffused nations shall inhabit. For
Japheth is, ‘Diffused.’ But Ham, who is interpreted ‘Hot,’ Noah’s middle
son being as distinct from both, and remaining between both, being
neither of the first fruits of Israel, nor of the fulness of the nations ; what
is he but a type of our hot heretics, not hot in the spirit of wisdom, but
of turn-coat subtlety, that burns in their hearts to the disturbance of the
saints’ quiet? But this is useful to the good proficients in the church as
the apostle says: “There must be heresies amongst you that they which
are approved might be known.” Whereupon also it is written: “The
learned son will be wise, and use the fools as his minister.” For there
are many things pertaining to the Catholic faith which the heretics
turbulently tossing and turning, cause them that are to defend them
against them, both to observe them the more fully, understand them the
more clearly, and avow them the more confidently. Thus the enemy’s
question adds the perfection of understanding. Although not only the
professed infidels, but even the cloaked heretics also lurk under the
name of Christians, and yet live wickedly, may be justly comprised in
Noah’s middle son: for in word they declare, and in deed they dis-
honour, the passion of Christ prefigured in Noah’s nakedness. Of these
it is said, ‘‘ By their fruits ye shall know them:” and therefore was
Ham cursed in his son, as in his fruit, that is his work: whereupon
Canaan, is fitly interpreted, ‘their motion,’ and what is that but ‘their
work.’ But Shem and Japheth, prefiguring circumcision and uncircum-
cision, or as the apostle says, the Jews and the Greeks (those I mean
that are called and justified), hearing of their father’s nakedness (the
Redeemer’s typical passion) took a garment, and putting it upon their
shoulders, went backward, and so covered their father’s nakedness, not
seeing what they covered. In like manner, we, in Christ’s passion, do
reverence that which was done for us, yet abhor we the Jews’ villainy
herein. The garment is the sacrament: their backs, the remembrance
of things past, because the Church now celebrates the passion of Christ,
Japheth dwelling in the tents of Shem, and Ham between them both:
it looks now no more for a passion to come, but the evil brother is
servant to his good brethren in his son, that is, his work: because the
good can make use of the evil to their increase of wisdom: for there
be some (says the apostle) ‘‘that preach not Christ purely, but howso-
ever Christ be preached sincerely, or colourably, I do joy, and will joy
therein ;” for he had planted the vineyard whereof the prophet says,
“The vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel,” &c., and he
drinks of the wine thereof: whether it be of that cup whereof it is said:
“ Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of?” And, “O My
Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me:” wherein doubtless
He meant His passion. Or whether it were signified (seeing that wine

90 St Augustine.

is the fruit of the vineyard) that He took our flesh and blood out of the
vineyard, that is, the house of Israel, and was drunk, and uncovered,
that is, suffered the passion. For there was His nakedness discovered
that is, His infirmity, whereof the apostle says, “He was crucified
concerning His infirmity:” whereof also he says elsewhere, ‘The
weakness of God is stronger than men, and the foolishness of God is
wiser than men.” But the Scripture having said, ‘‘ He was uncovered,”
and adding, “in the midst of His own house,” makes us an excellent
demonstration that He was to suffer death by the hands of His own
countrymen, fellows and kinsmen in the flesh. This passion of Christ,
the reprobate preach verbally only: for they know not what they preach.
But the elect lay up this great mystery within, and there they honour
it in their hearts, being God’s infirmity, and foolishness, but far stronger
and wiser than man in his best strength and wisdom. The type of this,
is Ham’s going out and telling of his brethren what he had seen of his
father, and Shem’s and Japheth’s going in, that is, disposing themselves
inwardly, for to cover and reverence that which he had seen and told
them of. Thus as we can we search the sense of Scripture, finding it more
congruent to some applications than to others, yet doubting not, but
that every part of it has a farther meaning than merely historical, and
that, to be referred to none but Christ and His Church the City of God:
which was preached from man’s first creation, as we see the events do
confirm. So then from these two blessed sons of Noah, and that cursed
one betwixt them, down unto the days of Abraham, is no mention made
of any righteous man, which time continued more than one thousand
years. I do not imagine there were no just men in this time, but that
it would have been too tedious to have rehearsed them all, and rather
to have concerned the diligence of a history, than the substance of a
prophecy. The writer of these divine books (or rather the Spirit of God
in him) goes only about such things as both declare the things past and
prefigure the things to come, pertinent only to the City of God: for
whatsoever is herein spoken concerning her opposites, it is all to make
her glory the more illustrious by entering comparison with their iniquity,
or to procure her augmentation by teaching her to observe their ruin,
and be warned thereby. Nor are all the historical relations of these
books, mystical, but such as are not are added for the more illustration
of such as are. It is the ploughshare only that turns up the earth : yet
may not the plough lack the other instruments. The strings only do
cause the sound in harps and other such instruments : yet must that
have pins, and the other, frets, to make up the music, and the organs have
other devices linked to the keys, which the organist touches not, but
only their keys, to make the sound proportionate, and harmonious.
Even so in those prophetic stories, some things are but bare relations,
yet are they adherent unto those that are significant, and in a manner
linked to them.

Of the City of God. gl

CHAPTER III.
Of the generations of the three sons of Noah.

Now must we see what we can find concerning the generations of these
sons, and lay that down as we go on, to shew the procession of both
the cities in their courses, heavenly and earthly. The generation of
Japheth, the youngest, is the first that is recorded, who had eight sons,
two of which had seven sons further, three the one and four the other:
so that Japheth had in all fifteen sons. Now Ham, the middle brother,
had four sons, one of which had five more, and one of these had two,
which in all make eleven. These being reckoned, the Scripture returns
as to the head, saying: “And Cush begat Nimrod, who was a giant
upon the earth:” he was a mighty hunter against the Lord, wherefore
it is said, “‘As Nimrod the mighty hunter against the Lord. And
the beginning of his kingdom was Babylon, Erech, Accad, and
Calneh in the land of Shinar. Out of that land came Asshur and
builded Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and Calah, and Resen,
between Chalah and Nineveh: this was a great city.” Now this Cush,
the giant Nimrod’s father, is the first of Ham’s generation that is named,
five of whose sons, and two of his grandchildren were reckoned before.
But he either begot this giant after all them, or else (and that I rather
hold) the Scripture names him for the sake of his fame, because his king-
dom is named also (whereof Babylon was the head city), and so are the
other cities and regions that he possessed. But where it is said that
Asshur came out of the land of Shinar, which belonged unto Nimrod,
and builded Nineveh and the other three cities, this was long after, but
named here, because of the greatness of the Assyrian kingdom, which
Ninus, Belus’s son, enlarged wonderfully, he that was the founder of the
great city Nineveh, which was called after his name: Nineveh from Ninus.
But Asshur, the father of the Assyrians, was none of Ham’s sons, but of
the race of Shem, Noah’s eldest son. So that it is evident that some
of Shem’s sons afterward attained the kingdom of this great giant, and
went further than it, and builded other cities, the first of which was
called Nineveh from Ninus: from this, the Scripture returns to another
son of Ham’s, Mizraim, and his generation is reckoned up: not by
particular men, but by seven nations : out of the sixth whereof, as from
a sixth son, came the Philistine which make up eight. Thence it
returns back again to Canaan in whom Ham was cursed, and his gene-
ration is comprised in eleven: and all their extents related, together
with some cities. Thus casting all into one sum, of Ham’s progeny are
one and thirty descended. Now it remains to recount the stock of
Shem, Noah’s eldest son: for the generations began to be counted from
the youngest, and so upwards gradually unto him. But it is somewhat
hard to find where his race begins to be recounted : yet must we explain
it some way : for it is chiefly pertaining to our purpose.

~

92 St Augustine.

Thus we read it, unto Shem also, the father of all the sons of Eber,
and elder brother of Japheth were children born : the order of the words
is this: “And Eber was born unto Shem, and all his children, even
unto Shem, who was Japheth’s elder brother.” Thus it makes Shem
the patriarch unto all that were born of his stock, whether they were his
sons, or his grandsons, or their sons, or their grandsons, and so of the
rest: for Shem begot not Eber, Eber is the first from him in lineal
descent.. For Shem (besides others) begot Arphaxad, he Canaan,
Canaan Salah, and Salah was Eber’s father. It is not for nothing then
that Eber is named the first of Shem’s line, and before all Shem’s
sons, being but grandchild to his grandchild, unless it be that the
Hebrews had their name from him, “ quasi Hebrews”: as it may be
held that they were called Hebrews, “quasi Abrahews,” of Abraham.
But true it is, they were called Hebrews from Eber: and Israel only
attained that language, and was the people wherein God’s City was both
prefigured, and made a pilgrim. So then Shem first has his six sons
reckoned, and four other sons by one of them: and then another of
Shem’s sons begot a son, and this son of this last son was father unto
Eber. And Eber had two sons, one called Peleg, that is, division: the
Scripture adds this reason of his name: ‘For in his time the earth was
divided :” which shall be manifested hereafter. Eber’s other son had
twelve sons, and so the lineage of Seth were in all seven and twenty.
Thus then the grand sum of all the generations of Noah’s three sons is
threescore and thirteen. Fifteen from Japheth, thirty and one from
Ham, and seven and twenty from Shem. Then the Scripture proceeds,
saying: “These are the sons of Shem according to their families and
their tongues, in their countries and nations.” And then of them all:
“These are the families of the sons of Noah after their generations
amongst their people:” and out of these were the nations of the earth
divided after the flood. Whence we gather that they were threescore
and thirteen, or rather (as we will show hereafter) threescore and twelve
nations ; not seventy-two single persons: for when the sons of Japhet
were reckoned, it concluded thus: “Of these were the islands of the
Gentiles divided in their hands, each one according to his tongue and
families in their nations.” And the sons of Ham are plainly made the
founders and storers of nations, as I showed before. Mizraim begot all
those that were called the Ludimi, and so of the other six, And
having reckoned Ham’s sons, it concludes in like manner: “ These
are the sons of Ham according to their tongues and families in their
countries and their nations.” Wherefore the Scripture could not reckon
many of their sons, because they grew up, and went to dwell in other
countries: and yet could not people whole lands themselves: for why
are but two Japheth’s eight sons’ progenies named : three of Ham’s four :
and two of Shem’s six? Had the other no children? Oh, we may not
imagine that; but they did not grow up into nations worthy recording
but as they were joined themselves with other people.

Of the City of God. 93

CHAPTER IV.
Of the confusion of tongues and the building of Babylon.

WueEre<as therefore the Scriptures reckons those nations each according
to its proper tongue, yet it returns back to the time when they had all
but one tongue, and then shews the cause of the diversity. ‘Then the
whole earth,” saith it, “‘ was of one language and one speech. And as they
went from the East, they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and there
they abode: and they said one to another, come let us make brick and
burn it in the fire: so they had brick for stone, and pitch for lime: ”
They said also, ‘Come, let us build us a city and a tower whose top
may reach to the heaven, that we may get us a name, lest we be
scattered upon the whole earth. And the Lord came down to see the
city and tower which the sons of men builded. And the Lord said,
‘‘Behold the people is all one, and have all one language,” and this
they began to do, neither can they now be stopped from whatsoever
they have imagined to effect : come on let us down and confound their
language there that each one of them understand not his fellow’s speech.
So the Lord scattered them from thence over the whole earth and they
left off to build the city and the tower. Therefore the name of it was
called ‘“‘ Confusion,” because there the Lord confounded the language of
the whole earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them upon all
the earth.” This city now which was called ‘Confusion ” is that Babylon,
whose wonderful building is admired even in profane histories: for
Babylon is interpreted “ Confusion,” whence we gather, that Nimrod the
giant was (as we said before) the builder of it: the Scripture saying:
“The beginning of his kingdom was Babylon,” that is, this was the
metropolitan city of the realm, the king’s chamber, and the chief of all
the rest: though it were never brought to that strange perfection that
the wicked and the proud would have it to be, for it was built too high,
which is said “ was up to heaven,” whether this were the fault of some
one tower which they wrought more upon than all the rest, or of them
all under one, as we will say, the soldier, or enemy, when we mean of
many thousands, and as the multitude of frogs and locusts that plagued
Egypt were called only in the singular number, the frog and locust: but
what intended man’s vain presumption herein? Admit, they could have
exceeded all the mountains with their building’s height, could they ever
have gotten above the element of air? and what hurt can elevation
either of body or spirit do unto God? Humility is the true tract unto
heaven, lifting up the spirit unto God, but not against God, as that giant
was said “to be an hunter against the Lord:” which some not under-
standing, were deceived by the ambiguity of the Greek and translated,
“before the Lord,” évavridv, being both before, and against: for the
psalm uses it so: “ And kneel before the Lord our maker.” And it is
also in Job: “He hath stretched out his hand against God.” Thus

94 St Augustine.

then is that hunter against the Lord to be understood. But what is the
word, hunter, but an entrapper, persecutor and murderer of earthly
creatures. So rose this hunter and his people, and raised this tower
against God, which was a type of the impiety of pride: and an evil
intent, though never effected deserves to be punished. But how was
it punished? Because that all sovereignty lies in command, and all
command in the tongue, thus pride was plagued, that the commander
of men should not be understood, because he would not understand the
Lord, his commander. Thus was this conspiracy dissolved, each one
departing from him whom he understood not, nor could he adapt him-
self to any but those that he understood, and thus these languages
divided them into nations and dispersed them over the whole earth, as
God who wrought those strange effects, had resolved.

CHAPTER V.
Of God's coming down to confound the language of those tower-builders.

For whereas it is written: “The Lord came down to see the city and
tower which the sons of men builded,” that is, not the sons of God, but
that earthly-minded crew which we call the terrestrial city: we must
think that God removed from no place, for He is always all in all, but
He is said to come down, when He does anything in earth beyond the
order of nature, wherein His omnipotency is as it were presented. Nor
gets He temporary knowledge by seeing, who can never be ignorant in any-
thing: but He is said to see and know that which He lays open to the
sense and knowledge of others. So then He did not so much see that city,
as He made it be seen, when He shewed how far He was displeased with it.
We may say God came down to it, because His angels came down, wherein
He dwells, as that also which follows. The Lord said, ‘“ Behold, the
people are one, and they have all one language,” &c.: and then, “ Come,
let us go down, and there confound their language.” This is a re-
capitulation, shewing how the Lord came down: for if He were come
down already, why should He say, “ Let us go down,” &c. : He spoke to
the angels in whom He came down. And He says not, “Come, and go
you down, and there confound their language,” but “Come, let us go,”
&c., shewing that they are His ministers, and yet He co-operates with
them and they with Him, as the apostle says, “For we are fellow-
labourers with God.”
CHAPTER VI.

The manner in which God speaks to His angels.

Tuart also where God says, ‘“ Let us make man in our image,” might have
been understood as spoken to the angels, because He says not, “I will
make,” but as He adds, “in our image:” it is wicked to think that God
made man in the angels’ image, or that God’s and theirs are all one. This
therefore is an intimation of the Trinity : which Trinity being, nevertheless,

Of the City of God. — 95

but one God, when He had said, “Let us make,” He continues, “Thus God
created the man in His image:” He does not say, ‘‘ The Gods created,”
nor “In the image of the Gods:” and so here may the Trinity be under-
stood, as if the Father had said to the Son and the Holy Spirit, “ Come
now, let us go down, and there confound their language:” this now, if
there be any reason excluding the angels in this point: as those whom
it rather befitted to come unto God, in holy nations and godly cogita-
tions, having recourse unto the unchangeable truth, the eternal law of
that upper court: for they themselves are not the truth, but partakers of
the truth, that created them, and draw to that, as the fountain of their
life, taking out of that what is wanting in themselves, and this motion of
theirs is firm, drawing to that from which they never depart. Nor does
God speak to His angels as we do one to another, or unto God: or His
angels to us, or we to them, or God by them to us: except in an ineffable
manner, shewn to us after our manner: and His high speech to them
before the effect, is the unaltered order of the effect: not admitting
sound, or reverberation of air, but an eternal power in itself, working upon
a temporal object. Thus does God speak to His angels, but unto us,
being far off Him, in a far other manner: and when we conceive any-
thing by the first manner, we come near the angels: but I am not here
to discourse of God’s ways opening His will to others: the unchange-
able truth does speak either ineffably from Himself unto reasonable
creatures, or by reasonable creatures, mutable or spiritual, either unto
our imagination and spirit, or to our bodily sense: and whereas it is
said: “No scheme of all their many shall fail, as they think,” this is
no confirmation, but rather a question, as we use in threatening, as in
this verse Virgil declares—
“Non arma expedient, totaque ex urbe sequentur ?”
§ And shall not all my powers take arms, and run ?’

We must therefore take it as a question, Shall no one of their many
schemes fail, as they imagine? otherwise it shews not as a threatening: _
we must needs therefore add the interrogative point. Thus then the
issue of Noah’s three sons were seventy-three, or rather (as we have
said) threescore and twelve nations, who filled the earth and the islands
thereof: and the number of nations was far above the number of
languages: for now in Africa we have many barbarous countries that
speak all one language: and who doubts that, mankind increasing,
divers took ships and went to inhabit the islands abroad?

CHAPTER VII.

Whether the remote isles were supplied with the beasts of all sorts
that were saved in the ark.

Bur now there is a question concerning those beasts, which man respects
not, and yet are not produced by putrefaction, as frogs are, but only by

96 St Augustine.

the copulation of male and female (as wolves, &c.), how they after the
deluge, wherein all perished but those in the ark, could come into those
islands, unless they were propagated from them that were preserved in
the ark, we may think that they might come to the nearest isles: but
there are some far in the main, to which no beast could swim. If
men desired to catch them and transport them thither, questionless they
might do it by hunting ; though we cannot deny but that the angels by
God’s command might carry them thither: but if they were produced
from the earth, as at first, because God said, ‘‘ Let the earth bring forth
the living soul:” then is it most apparent that the diversity of beasts
were preserved in the ark rather for a figure of the divers nations, than
for restoration, if the earth brought them forth in those isles to which
they could not otherwise come.

CHAPTER VIII.
Whether Adam’s or Noah’s sons begot any monstrous kinds of men.

Ir is further demanded whether Noah’s sons, or rather Adam’s (of whom
all mankind came) begot any of those monstrous men, that are mentioned
in profane histories: as some that have but one eye in their mid fore-
head ; some with their heels where their toes should be ; some with both
sexes in one, and their right breast a man’s, and the left a woman’s, and
both begetting and bearing children in one body ; some without mouths,
living only by air and smelling ; some but a cubit high, called pigmies, by
the Greeks ; some, where the women bear children at the fifth year of their
age, dying at the eighth ; some that have but one leg, and bend it not,
and yet are of wonderful swiftness, being called Skiopodes, because they
sleep under the shade of this their foot ; some neckless, with the face of
a man in their breasts ; and such other as are wrought in checker-work in
-the sea-street at Carthage, being taken out of their most curious and exact
histories. What shall I say of the Cynocephali, that had dogs’ heads,
and barked like dogs? Indeed we need not believe all the monstrous
reports, that run concerning this point. But whatsoever he be, that is
man, that is, a mortal reasonable creature, be his form, voice, or what-
ever, never so different from an ordinary man’s, none of the baptised
ought to doubt that he is of Adam’s race : yet is the power of nature shown
and strongly shown in such: but the same reasons that we can give for this
or that extraordinary birth amongst us, the same may be given for those
monstrous nations: for God made all, and when or how He would form
this or that, He knows best, having the perfect skill how to beautify this
universe by opposition and diversity of parts. But he that cannot con-
template the beauty of their whole, stumbles at the deformity of the part :
not knowing the harmony that it has with the whole. We see many
that have above five fingers, or toes: and this farther from that, than

Of the City of God. 97

the other is in proportion : yet God forbid that anyone should be so be-
sotted as to think the Maker erred in the creation of this, though we know
not why He made him thus. Be the diversity never so great, He knows
what He does: and none must reprehend Him. At Hippo we had
one born with feet like half moons, and hands likewise : with two fingers
only, and two toes. If there were a nation such now, curious history
would ring with it as of a wonder. But must we therefore say that this
creature came not from Adam? an age can seldom be without an herma-
phrodite, though they be not ordinary—persons I mean that are so perfect
in both sexes that we know not what to term them, man, or woman:
though custom has given the pre-eminence to the chief, and call them
still, men. For none speak of them in the female sense. In our time
(some few years ago) was one born, that was two from the middle up-
wards, and but one downward. This was in the East: he had two heads,
two breasts, four hands, one belly, and two feet : and lived so long that
a multitude of men were eye-witness of this shape of his.

But who can reckon all the marvellous births? Wherefore as we
may not say but those are really descended from the first man, so what
nations soever have shapes different from that which is in most men,
and seem to be different from the common form, if they be definable
to be reasonable creatures, and mortal, they must be acknowledged for
Adam’s issue: (if it be true that there be such diversity of shapes in
whole nations, varying so far from ours.) For if we knew not that apes,
monkeys, and baboons, were not men but beasts, those brave and curious
historiographers would belie them confidently to be nations and genera-
tions of men. But if they be men of whom they write those wonders,
what if God’s pleasure was to shew us in the creating of whole nations
from such monsters, that His wisdom did not, like an imperfect carver, fail
in the framing of such shapes, but purposely formed them in this fashion ?
It is no absurdity therefore to believe that there may be such nations of
monstrous men, as well as we see our times are often witnesses of mon-
strous births here amongst ourselves. Wherefore to close this question
up with a sure lock: either the stories of such monsters are plain lies ;
or if there be such, they are either no men; or if they be men, they are
descended from Adam.

CHAPTER IX.
Whether there be any inhabitants of the earth called the Antipodes.

But whereas they fable of a people that inhabit that land where the
sun rises, when it sets with us, and go with their feet towards ours,
it is incredible. They have no authority for it, but only conjecture
that such a thing may be, because the earth hangs within the orbs of
heaven, and each part of the world is above and below alike, and
thence they gather that the other hemisphere cannot want inhabitants.

IL. G

98 St Augustine.

Now they consider not that although that it be globous as ours is, yet it
may be all covered with sea: and if it be bare, yet it follows not, that it
is inhabited, seeing that the Scripture (that proves all that it says to be
true, by the true events that it presages) never makes mention of any such
thing. And it were too absurd to say, that men might sail over that
huge ocean, and go and dwell there: that the race of the first man
might people that part also. But let us go and seek among those
seventy-two nations and their languages, whether we can find that City
of God which remained a continual pilgrim on earth until the deluge,
and is shewed to persevere amongst the sons of Noah after their bless-
ing, chiefly in Shem, Noah’s eldest son ; for Japheth’s blessing was to
dwell in the tents of his brother.

CHAPTER X.

Of the generation of Shem, in which the City of God lies down unto
Abraham.

SHEM’s generation it is then that we must follow to find the City of
God after the deluge, as Seth derived it long before. Therefore the
Scripture, having shewn the earthly city to be in Babylon, that is, zz
confusion, returns to the Patriarch Shem, and carries his generation
down unto Abraham, counting every man’s years, when he had his son,
and how long he lived: where by the way I think of my promise of
explaining, why one of Heber’s sons was called Peleg, because in his
days the earth was divided: how was it divided? by the confusion of
tongues.

So then the sons of Shem that concern not this purpose, being let
pass, the Scripture recites those that convey his seed down unto Abra-
ham: as it did with those that conveyed Seth’s seed before the deluge,
. down unto Noah. It begins therefore thus: “These are the genera-
tions of Shem: Shem was a hundred years old, and begat Arphaxad,
two years after the flood. And Shem lived after he begat Arphaxad
five hundred years, and begat sons and daughters, and died:” and
thus of the rest, shewing when every one begot his son, that belonged
to this generation that descended to Abraham, and how long every one
lived after he had begotten his son, and begot more sons and daugh-
ters, to shew us what a great multitude might come of one, lest we
should make any childish doubt at the few that it names: Shem’s seed
being sufficient to replenish so many kingdoms, chiefly for the Assyrian
monarchy, where Ninus, the subduer of all the East, reigned in majesty.
and left a mighty empire to be possessed many years after by his pos.
terity. But let us not stand upon trifles longer than needs must: we will
not reckon the number of every man’s years till he died, but only until
he begat the son who is enranked in this genealogical roll, And
gathering these from the deluge to Abraham, we will briefly touch at

Of the City of God. 99

other accidents as occasion shall necessarily import. In the second
year therefore after the deluge, Shem, being two hundred years old,
begat Arphaxad: Arphaxad, being a hundred and thirty-five years old,
begat Canaan : he, being a hundred and thirty years old, begat Salah, and
so old was Salah when he begat Heber: Heber was a hundred and thirty
and four years old when he begat Peleg: Peleg a hundred and thirty
and begat Reu: he one hundred and thirty and two, and begat Serug:
Serug one hundred and thirty and begat Nahor: Nahor seventy and
nine, and begat Terah: Terah seventy, and begat Abram, whom God
afterward called Abraham. So then from the deluge to Abraham are one
thousand seventy and two years, according to the vulgar translation,
that is, the Septuagint’s. But in the Hebrew the years are far fewer,
whereof we can hear little or no reason shewn.

Now therefore in this quest of the City of God, we cannot say in
this time wherein those men were not all of one language (those
seventy and two nations, I mean, wherein we seek it), that all mankind
was fallen from God’s true service: but that it remained only in Shem’s
generation, descending to Abraham by Arphaxad. But the earthly
city was visible enough in that presumption of building the tower up to
heaven (the true type of devilish exaltation) : therein was it apparent, and
ever after that. But whether this other were not before, or lay hid, or
rather both remained in Noah’s sons, the godly in the two blessed ones,
and the wicked in that one accursed, from whom that great giant-hunter
against the Lord descended, it is hard to discern, for it may be (and
that most likely) that before the building of Babylon, God might have
servants of some of Ham’s children, and the devil, of some of Shem’s
and Japheth’s. For we may not believe that the earth wanted of either
sort. For that saying, “ They are all gone out of the way, they are all
corrupt, there is not one that doeth good, no not one,” even in both the
Psalms that have this saying, this follows: “ Do notall that work iniquity
know that they eat up My people as it were bread?” so that God had
His people then: and therefore that same, “No not one,” is meant
restrictively of the sons of men, and not the sons of God, for He said
before, ‘“‘ The Lord looked down from heaven upon the sons of men, to
see if there were any that would understand and seek after God:” and
then the addition that follows shews that it was those, that lived after
the law of the flesh, and not of the spirit, of whom the Psalmist speaks.

CHAPTER XI.

That the Hebrew tongue (so called afterward of Heber) was the first
language upon the earth, and remained in his family when that great
confusion was.

WHEREFORE even as sin wanted not sons when they had all but one

language (for so it was before the deluge, and yet all deserved to perish

100 St Augustine.

therein but Noah and his family), so when man’s presumption was
punished with his language’s confusion, whence the city Babylon, their
proud work, had the name, Heber’s house failed not, but kept the old
language still. Whereupon as I said, Heber was reckoned the first of
all the sons of Shem, who begat each of them an whole nation: yet was
he the fifth from Seth in descent. So then because this language re-
mained in his house, that was confounded in all the rest (being credibly
held the only language upon earth before this), hence it had the name
of the Hebrew tongue, for then it was to be nominally distinct from the
other tongues, as other tongues had their proper names. But when it
was the tongue of all, it had no name, but the tongue or language of
mankind, wherein all men spake. Some men say: if that the earth
was divided by the languages in Peleg’s time, Heber’s son, it should
rather have been called his name than Heber’s. O but we must under-
stand that Heber did therefore give his son Peleg such a name, that
is, ‘ division,’ because he was born unto him just at the time when the
earth was divided; so means the Scripture when it says, “In his days
the earth was divided.” For if Heber were not living when the con-
fusion befell, the tongue that was to remain in his family should not have
had the name from him: and there we must think that it was first uni-
versal, because the confusion of tongues was a punishment, which God’s
people were not to cast off: nor was it for nothing that Abraham could
not communicate this his language unto all his generation, but only to
those that were descended from Jacob, and arising into an evident people
of God, were to receive his testament, and the Saviour in the flesh. Nor
did all the children of Heber bear away this language, but only that
branch from whence Abraham descended. Wherefore though there be
no godly men evidently named, that lived at the time when the wicked
built Babylon: yet this concealment ought not to dull, but rather to
incite one to inquire further. For whereas we read that at first, men
had all one language, and that Heber is first reckoned of all the sons of
Shem, being but the fifth of his house downward, and that language which
the patriarchs and prophets used in all their words and writings was the
Hebrew: verily when we seek where that tongue was preserved in the
confusion (being to be kept amongst them to whom the confusion could
be no punishment), what can we say but that it was preserved unto this
man’s family of whom it had the name? and that this is a great sign of
righteousness in him, that whereas the rest were afflicted with the con-
fusion of their tongues, he only and his family were acquit of that
affliction. But yet there is another doubt: how could Heber and his
son Peleg become two several nations, having both but one language ?
And truly the Hebrew tongue descended to Abraham from Heber, and
so down from him until Israel became a great people. How then
could every son of Noah’s son’s line become a particular nation when
as Heber and Peleg had both but one language? The greatest pro-

Of the City of God. 101

bability is, that Nimrod became a nation also, and yet was reckoned,
for the eminence of his dignity, and corporal strength, to keep the
number of seventy-two nations inviolate: but Peleg was not named
for growing into a nation, but that that strange accident of the earth’s
division fell out in his days: for of the nation and language of Heber,
was Peleg also. We need not stumble at this, how Nimrod might live
just with that time when Babylon was built, and the confusion of
tongues befell, for there is no reason, because Heber was the sixth from
Noah, and he but the fourth, but that they might both live unto one
time and in one time, for this fell out so before, where they that had
the least progeny lived the longest, that they that had the more, died
sooner: or they that had few sons had them later than those that had
many, for we must conceive this, that when the earth was built
Noah’s sons had not only all their issue (who were called the fathers of
those nations) but that these also had great and numerous families, worthy
the name of nations. Nor may we think then that they were born as
they are reckoned. Otherwise, how could Joktan’s twelve sons (another
son of Heber’s) become of those nations, if he were born after Peleg as
he is reckoned ? for in Peleg’s days was the earth divided.

We must take it thus then, Peleg is first named, but was born long
after his brother Joktan, whose twelve sons had all their families so
great that each might be sufficient to share one tongue in the confusion,
for so might he that was last born, be first reckoned, as Noah’s youngest
son is first named, namely Japheth ; Ham, the second, the next; and
Shem, the eldest, the last. Now some of these nations’ names continued,
so that we may know to this day whence they are derived, as the.
Assyrians of Assur ; the Hebrews of Heber: and some, continuance of
time has abolished, in so much that the most learned men can scarcely
find any memory of them in antiquity. For some say that the
Egyptians were they that came of Mizraim, Ham’s son: here is no
similitude of names at all: nor in the thopians, whom they say came
of Cush, another son of Ham’s. And if we consider all, we shall find
far more names lost than remaining.

CHAPTER XII.

Of that point of time wherein the City of God began a new order of
succession in Abraham.

Now let us see how the city of God proceeded from that minute
wherein it began to be more eminent and evident in promises unto
Abraham (which now we see fulfilled in Christ). Thus the Holy
Scripture teaches us then, that Abraham was born in a part of Chaldea
which belonged unto the empire of the Assyrians. And now had
superstition got great head in Chaldea, as it had everywhere else;

102 St Augustine.

so there was only the house of Terah, Abraham’s father, that served
God truly, and (by all likelihood) kept the Hebrew tongue pure, though
that (as Joshua tells the Hebrews) as they were God’s evident people in
Egypt, so in Mesopotamia they fell to idolatry, all Heber’s other sons
becoming other nations, or being commixt with others. Therefore
even as in the deluge of waters, Noah’s house remained alone to repair
mankind, so in this deluge of sin and superstition, Terah’s house only
remained as the place wherein God’s city was planted and kept. And
even as before the deluge, the generations of all from Adam, the
number of years, and the reason of the deluge being all reckoned up,
before God began to speak of building the ark, the Scripture says of
Noah: “These are the generations of Noah:” even so here, having
reckoned all from Shem, the son of Noah, down unto Abraham, he
puts this to the conclusion, as a point of much moment, ‘‘ These are
the generations of Terah.” Terah begat Abraham, Nahor, and Haran:
and Haran died before his father Terah in the land wherein he was born,
being a part of Chaldea. And Abraham and Nahor took them wives:
the name of Abraham’s wife was Sarah, and the name of Nahor’s wife
was Milcah, the daughter of Haran: who was father both to Milcah
and Iscah, whom some hold also to be Sarah, Abraham’s wife.

CHAPTER XIII.

Why there is no mention of Nahor, Terah’s son, in his departure from
Chaldea to Mesopotamia.

THEN the Scripture proceeds, and declares how Terah and his family
left Chaldea, and came into Mesopotamia, and dwelt in Haran. But of
his son Nahor there is no mention, as if he had not gone with him.
Thus says the Scripture: ‘Thus Terah took Abraham his son, and his
grandson Lot, the son of Haran, and Sarah his daughter-in-law, his son
Abraham’s wife, and he led them out of the country of Chaldea, into
the land of Canaan, and he came to Haran and dwelt there.” Here is
no word of Nahor, nor his wife Milcah. But afterward, when Abraham
sent his servant to seek a wife for his son Isaac, we find it written thus:
“So the servant took ten of his master’s camels, and of his master’s
goods with him, and departed and went into Mesopotamia, into the city
of Nahor.” This place, and others beside, do prove, that Nahor went
out of Chaldea also, and settled himself in Mesopotamia where Abraham
and his father had dwelt. Why did not the Scriptures then remember
him, when Terah went thence to dwell elsewhere, when it makes men-
tion both of Abraham and Lot, that was but his grand-child, and Sarah
his daughter-in-law, in this transmigration? What should we think but
that he had forsaken his father’s and brother’s religion, and received the
Chaldee superstition, and afterward, either repenting of his deed, or

Of the City of God. 103

being persecuted by the country, suspecting him to be hollow-hearted,
departed thence himself also? For Holofernes, Israel’s enemy, in the
book of Judith, inquiring what nation they were, and whether he ought
to fight against them, was thus answered by Achior, captain of the
Ammonites: ‘‘ Let my lord hear the word of the mouth of his servant,
and I will shew thee the truth concerning this people that inhabit these
mountains, and there shall no lie come out of thy servant’s mouth.”
This people come out of the stock of the Chaldeans, and they dwelt
before in Mesopotamia, because they would not follow the gods of their
fathers, that were glorious in the land of Chaldea: but they left the way
of their ancestors and worshipped the God of heaven, whom they knew:
so that they cast them out from the face of their gods, and they fled
into Mesopotamia, and dwelt there many days. Then their God com-
manded them to depart from the place where they dwelt, and to go into
the land of Canaan where they dwelt, and so forth, as Achior the
Ammonite relates. Hence it is plain that Terah’s family were perse-
cuted by the Chaldeans for their religion, because they worshipped the
true and only God.

CHAPTER XIV.
Of the age of Terah, who lived in Haran until his dying day.

TERAH died in Mesopotamia, where it is said he lived two hundred
and five years; and after his death the promises that God made to
Abraham began to be manifested: of Terah, it is thus recorded: “The
days of Terah were two hundred and five years, and he died in Haran.”
He lived not there all this time, you must think, but because he ended
his time (which amounted unto two hundred and five years) in that
place, it is said so, Otherwise we could not tell how many years he lived,
because we have not the time recorded when he came to Haran: and
it were foolish to imagine that in that catalogue where all their ages are
recorded, his only should be left out: for whereas the Scripture names
some, and yet names not their years, it is to be understood, that they
belong not to that generation that is so lineally drawn down from man
to man. For the stem that is derived from Adam unto Noah, and from
him unto Abraham, names no man without recording the number of

his years also.
CHAPTER XV.

Of the time wherein A braham received the promise from God, and departed
Jrom Faran.

Wuen, therefore, we read, that after Terah’s death the Lord said unto
Abraham, “Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and
from thy father’s house,” é&c., we must not think that this followed

104 St Augustine.

_ immediately in order of time, though it follow immediately in the Scrip-
tures, for so we shall fall into an inextricable doubt : for after these words
unto Abraham, the Scripture follows thus: ‘‘So Abraham departed, as
the Lord spake unto him, and Lot went with him: and Abraham was
seventy-five years old when he went out of Haran.” How can this be
true now, if Abraham went not out of Haran until after the death of his
father? for Terah begat him, as we said before, at the seventieth year
of his age: unto which add seventy-five years (the age of Abraham at
this his departure from Haran) and it makes a hundred and forty-five years.
So old therefore was Terah when Abraham departed from Haran, that
city of Mesopotamia: for Abraham was then but seventy-two years of
age, and his father begetting him when he was seventy years old, must
needs be a hundred and forty-five years old (and no more) at his de-
parture. Therefore he went not after his father’s death, who lived two
hundred and five years, but before, at the seventy-fifth year of his own
age, and consequently the hundred and forty-fifth of his father’s. And
thus the Scripture (in an usual course) returns to the time which the
former relation had gone beyond: as it did before, saying, “ That the
sons of Noah’s sons were divided into nations and languages,” &c., and
yet afterwards continues: ‘Then the whole earth was of one language,”
&c., as though this had really followed.

How then had every man his nation and his tongue, but that the
Scriptures return back again unto the times over-passed? Even so here,
whereas it is said, “ The days of Terah were two hundred and five years,
and he died in Haran :” and then the Scriptures, returning to that which
over-passed to finish the discourse of Terah first: then the Lord said
unto Abraham : “ Get thee out of thy country,” &c., after which is added,
“So Abraham departed as the Lord spake unto him, and Lot went
with him: and Abraham was seventy years old when he went from
Haran.” This therefore was, when his father was a hundred and forty-
five years of age, for then was Abraham, seventy-five. This doubt is
also otherwise dissolved by counting Abraham’s seventy years when he
went to Haran, from the time when he was freed from the fire of the
Chaldeans, and not from his birth, as if he had rather been born then.
But St Stephen in the Acts discoursing hereof, says thus: “The God of
glory appeared to our father Abraham in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt
in Charran, and said unto him, Get thee out of thy country from thy kin-
dred and come into the land which I will give thee.” According to
these words of Stephen it was not after Terah’s death that God spake
to Abraham (for Terah died in Haran) but it was before he dwelt in
Haran, yet was in Mesopotamia. But he was gone out of Chaldea first.
And whereas Stephen says, “Then came he out of the land of the
Chaldeans and dwelt in Charran:” this is relation of a thing done after
those words of God: for he went out of Chaldea after God had spoken
to him (for says he, “God spake to him in Mesopotamia”) but that

Of the City of God. 105

word, “then,” comprises all the time from Abraham’s departure until the
Lord spoke to him. And that which follows: “ After that his father
was dead, God placed him in this land wherein he now dwelleth ;” the
meaning of the place is: ‘“‘ And God brought him from thence, where
his father died afterwards, and placed him here.” So then we just
understand, that God spoke unto Abraham, being in Mesopotamia, yet
not as yet dwelling in Haran: but that he came into Haran with his
father, holding God’s commandment fast, and in the seventy-fifth year
of his age departed thence: which was in his father’s one hundred and
forty-fifth year. Now he says that he was placed in Canaan (not he
came out of Haran) after his father’s death, for when he was dead, he
began to buy land there, and became rich in possessions. But whereas
God spoke thus to him after he came from Chaldea and was in Mesopo-
tamia, “Get thee out of thy country, from thy kindred and from thy
father’s house:” this concerned not his bodily removal (for that he
had done before) but the separation of his soul from them, for his mind
was not departed from them if he ever had any hope to return, or
desired it: this hope and desire by God’s command was to be cut off.
It is not incredible that afterwards when Nahor followed his father,
Abraham then fulfilled the command of God, and took Sarah his wife
and Lot his brother’s son, and so went out of Haran.

CHAPTER XVI.
The order and quality of God’s promises made unto Abraham.

Now must we examine the promises made unto Abraham: for in them
the oracles of the true God, prophesying of our Lord Jesus Christ, began
to appear: who was to come of that godly people, that the prophecies
promised. The first of them is this: “The Lord said unto Abraham :
Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s
house unto the land that I will shew thee. And I will make of thee
a great nation, and will bless thee, and make thy name great, and thou
shalt be blessed: I will also bless them that bless thee, and curse them
that curse thee, and in thee shall all the families of the earth be
blessed.” Here we must observe a double promise made unto Abra-
ham: the first, that his seed should possess the land of Canaan, in
these words, “Go unto the land that I will shew thee, and I will
make thee a great nation ;” the second, of far more worth and moment,
concerning his spiritual seed, whereby he is not only the father of
Israel, but of all the nations that follow his faith: and that is in these
words: “And in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.”
This promise was made in Abraham’s seventy-fifth year, as Eusebius
thinks: as if that Abraham did presently thereupon depart out of
Haran, because the Scripture may not be controlled, that gives him
this many years at the time of his departure. But if it were made then,

106 St Augustine.

then was Abraham with his father in Haran: for he could not depart
from thence, unless he had first dwelt there. Does not this then
contradict Stephen’s saying; ‘‘ That God appeared unto him in Meso-
potamia, before he dwelt in Charran”? But we must conceive that this
was in one year, God’s promise to Abraham first; Abraham’s dwelling
in Haran next; and lastly his departure: not only because Eusebius’s
computation is thus, accounting four hundred and thirty years from this
year unto the Israelites’ freedom out of Egypt, but also because the
Apostle Paul mentions it likewise.

CHAPTER XVII.

Of the three most eminent kingdoms of the world, the chief of which in
Abraham's time was most excellent of all.

AT this time there were divers famous kingdoms upon earth, that is,
society of men living carnally, and in the service of the fallen angels,
three of which were most illustrious, the Sidonians, the Egyptians,
and the Assyrians, which was the greatest of all. For Ninus, the son
of Belus, conquered all Asia, excepting India only. I do not mean
by Asia which is now but one province of the greater Asia, but that
which contained it all, which some make the third part of the world,
dividing the whole earth into Asia, Europe, and Africa; and some make
it the half, dividing the whole into two only. Others divide all into
three equal parts. Asia in the east, from the north to the south; Europe
from the north to the west; and Africa from the west unto the south:
so that Europe and Africa are but the half of the world, and Asia the
other half: but the two first were made two parts, because all the water
that comes from the ocean, runs in between them two, making our great
sea. So that dividing the world into two, Asia will be one half, and
Europe and Africa the other. Therefore Sidonia, one of the three
eminent kingdoms, was not under the Assyrian monarchy, for it lay in
Europe. But Egypt must needs be inferior unto Assyria, seeing that
the Assyrians were lords of all Asia, excepting India. So then the city
_of the wicked kept the chief court in Assyria: whose chief city was
Babylon, most fitly called so, that is, ‘confusion:’ and there Ninus
succeeded his father Belus, who had held that sovereignty threescore
and five years: and his son Ninus lived fifty-two years, and had reigned
forty and five years when Abraham was born, which was about one
thousand two hundred years before Rome was built, that other Babylon
of the West.
CHAPTER XVIII.

Of God's second promise to Abraham, that he and his seed should possess
the land of Canaan.

So Abraham at the seventy-fifth year of his own age: and the hundred

and forty-fifth of his father’s, left Haran, and took Lot, his brother’s son,

Of the City of God. 107

with him, and Sarah his wife, and came into the land of Canaan, even
unto Sichem, where he received his second promise: ‘“ The Lord ap-
peared unto Abraham and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land.”
This promise concerned not that seed of his, whereby he was to become
the father of all the nations, but the issue of his body only, by Isaac
and Israel: for their seed possessed this land.

CHAPTER XIX.

How God preserved Sarah’s chastity in Egypt, when Abraham would
not have it known that she was his wife but his sister.

THERE Abraham built an altar, and then departed and dwelt in a wilder-
ness, and from thence was driven by famine, to go into Egypt, where he
called his wife his sister, and yet he lied not. For she was his cousin-
german, and Lot being his brother’s son, was called his brother. So
that he did only conceal, and not deny that she was his wife: commend-
ing the custody of her chastity unto God, and avoiding man’s deceits,
as man: for if he would not have endeavoured to eschew danger as
much as in him lay, he would rather have become a tempter of God,
than a truster in Him, whereof we have disputed against Faustus the
Manichee’s calumnies. And as Abraham trusted upon God, so came
it to pass: for Pharaoh the king of Egypt, seeking to have her to wife,
was sore afflicted, and forced to restore her to her husband. Where
God forbid that we should think her defiled by him any way: his great
plagues that he suffered would no way permit him to commit any such
outrage.

CHAPTER XxX.

Of the separation of Lot and Abraham without breach of charity or love
between them.

So Abraham departing out of Egypt to the place whence he came, Lot
(without any breach of love between them) departed to dwell in Sodom.
For being both very rich, their shepherds and herdsmen could not agree,
and so to avoid that inconvenience, they parted. For amongst such (as
all men are imperfect) there might no doubt be some contentions now
and then arising: to avoid which evil, Abraham said thus unto Lot:
“ Let there be no strife I pray thee, between thee and me, nor between
my herdsmen and thine, for we be brethren. Is not the whole land
before thee? I pray thee depart from me: if thou wilt take the left
hand, I will go to the right, or if thou wilt go to the right hand, then I
will take the left.” And hence it may be, the world got up an honest
quiet custom, that the elder should evermore divide the land, and the

younger should choose.

108 St Augustine.

CHAPTER XXI.

Of God’s third promise, of the land of Canaan to Abraham and his
seed for ever.

But when Abraham and Lot were parted, and dwelt apart (for neces-
sity’s sake and not for discord), Abraham in Canaan, Lot in Sodom,
God spake the third time to Abraham, saying: “ Lift up thine eyes now,
and look from the place where thou art; northward and southward,
and eastward, and to the sea, for all the land thou seest will I give to
thee and thy seed for ever: and I will make thy seed as the sands of
the earth: so that if a man may number the sands of the earth, then
shall thy seed be numbered also: arise, walk through the land in the
length and breadth thereof, for I will give it unto thee.” Whether these
promises concern his being the father of all the nations, it is not evidently
apparent. These words, “I will make thy seed as the sands of the sea,”
may have some reference to that: being a tropical phrase of speech
which the Greeks call hyperbole. But how the Scripture uses this, and
the rest: none that has read them, but understands. This trope now,
is when the words do far exceed the meaning. For who sees not that
the number of the sands is more than all Adam’s seed can make, from
the beginning to the end of the world? how much more then Abraham’s,
though it include both the Israelites and the believers of all other
nations? Compare this latter with the number of the wicked, and it is
but an handful: though this handful be such a multitude as Holy Writ
thought to signify hyperbolically, by the sands of the earth. And indeed
the seed promised Abraham is innumerable unto men, but not unto God,
nor the sands neither: and therefore because not only the Israelites,
but all Abraham’s seed besides, which he shall propagate in the spirit,
are fitly compared with the sands ; therefore this promise includes both.
But this, we say, is not apparent, because his bodily issue alone, in
time amounted to such a number that it filled almost all the world, and
so might (by an hyperbole) be comparable to the sands of the earth,
because this multitude is only innumerable unto man. But that the land
He spoke of, was only Canaan, no man makes question. But some
may stumble at this, “‘I will give it to thee and thy seed for ever :”
whether He mean, eternally, here or no. But if we understand this
“ever,” to be meant until the world’s end, as we do firmly believe it is,
then the doubt is cleared. For though the Israelites be chased out of
Jerusalem, yet do they possess other cities in Canaan, and were all the
land inhabited with Christians, there were Abraham’s seed in them.

CHAPTER XXII.
ffow Abraham overthrew the enemies of the Sodomites, freed Lot from
captivity, and was blessed by Melchizedek the priest.
ABRAHAM having received this promise, departed and remained in
another place, by the wood of Mamre, which was in Hebron. And

Of the City of God. 109

then Sodom being spoiled, and Lot taken prisoner by five kings that
came against them, Abraham went to fetch him back with three hundred
and eighteen of those that were born and bred in his house, and over-
threw those kings, and set Lot at liberty, and yet would take nothing of
the spoil though the king for whom he warred proffered it him. But
then was he blessed of Melchizedek, who was priest of the high God, of
whom there is written in the Epistle to the Hebrews (which the most
affirm to be Paul’s, though some deny it) many and great things. For
there the sacrifice that the whole Church offers now unto God, was first
apparent, and that was prefigured which was long after fulfilled in Christ,
of whom the prophet said, before He came in the flesh: ‘‘ Thou art a
priest for ever, after the order of Melchizedek :” not after the order of
Aaron, for that was to be removed, when the true things came to pass,
whereof those were figures.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Of God's promise to Abraham that He would make his seed as the stars
of heaven, and that he was justified by faith, before the circumcision.

THEN the word of the Lord came unto Abraham in a vision, who having
many great promises made, and yet doubting of posterity, he said that
Eliezer his steward should be his heir: but presently he had an heir pro-
mised him, not Eliezer, but one of his own body: and beside that his
seed should be innumerable, not as the sands of earth now, but as the
stars of heaven: wherein the celestial glory of his posterity seems to be
plainly intimated. But as for their number, who sees not that the sands
do far exceed the stars? herein you may say they are comparable in
that they are both innumerable. For we cannot think that one can see
all the stars, but the more earnestly he beholds them, the more he sees: so
that we may well suppose that there are some that deceive the sharpest
eye, besides those that arise in other horizons out of our sight. Lastly,
such as hold and record one certain and definite number of the stars,
as Aratus, or Eudoxus, or others, this book overthrows them wholly.
And here is that recorded that the apostle recites in commendation of
God’s grace: Abraham believed the Lord, and that was counted unto
him for righteousness, lest circumcision should exalt itself, and deny
the uncircumcised nations access unto Christ: for Abraham was un-
circumcised as yet, when he believed thus, and it was imputed unto him
for righteousness.

CHAPTER XXIV.

Of the signification of the sacrifice which Abraham was commanded to offer
when he desired to be confirmed tn the things he believed.

Gop said also unto him in the same vision: “I am the Lord that
brought thee out of the country of the Chaldees, to give thee this land

110 St Augustine.

to inherit it.” Then said Abraham, ‘‘ Lord, how shall I know that I
shall inherit it?” and God said unto him, ‘‘ Take me an heifer of three
years old, a she goat of three years old, a ram of three years old, a turtle-
dove, and a pigeon.” So he did, and divided them in the midst, and
laid one piece against another, but the birds he did not divide. Then
came fowls, as the book says, and fell on the carcases, and sat thereupon,
and Abraham sat by them: and about sunset there fell an heavy sleep
upon Abraham, and lo a horror of great darkness fell upon him: and
God said unto Abraham, ‘‘ Know this assuredly that thy seed shall bea
stranger in a land that is not theirs, four hundred years, and they skall
serve there, and shall be evil entreated. But the nation whom they
shall serve will I judge, and afterwards they shall come out with great
substance. But thou shalt go unto thy fathers in peace, and shalt die
in a good age: and in the fourth generation they shaH come hither
again, for the wickedness of the Amorites is not yet full: and when
the sun went down there was a darkness, and behold a smoking furnace,
and a fire-brand went between those pieces. In that same day the Lord
made a covenant with Abraham saying, Unto thy seed have I given this
land from the river of Egypt unto the great river of Euphrates, the
Kenites, and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the
Perizzites, the Rephaims, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites,
and the Jebusites :” all this did Abraham hear and see in his vision: to
stand upon each particular were tedious, and from our purpose. Suffice
it, that we must know that whereas Abraham believed before, and that
was counted unto him for righteousness, he fell not from his faith now,
in saying, “ Lord, how shall I know that I shall inherit it :” namely, that
land which God had promised him, he says not, from whence shall I
know? but how, or whereby shall I know, by what similitude shall I be
further instructed in my belief? Nor did the Virgin Mary distrust, say-
ing: ‘* How shall this be, seeing I knowno man?” She knewit would
~ be, but she inquired of the manner and was answered thus, ‘The Holy
Ghost shall descend upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall
overshadow thee.”

And in this manner had Abraham his simile in his three beasts,
his heifer, his goat, and ram, and the two birds, the turtle-dove and the
pigeon : to not to trouble as to how that was to come to pass, which he was
firmly persuaded should come to pass some way. Wherefore either the
heifer signified the people’s yoke under the law, the goat their offending,
and the ram their dominion (which three creatures were all three years
old, because the three spaces of time being so famous which lay from
Adam to Noah, from Noah to Abraham, and from Abraham to David,
who was the first elected King of Israel (Saul being a reprobate), of
these three, this third, from Abraham to David, contained Israel’s full
growth to glory): or else they may signify some other thing more con-
veniently ; but without all doubt, the turtle-dove and the pigeon are types

Of the City of God. I1I

of his spiritual seed, and therefore it is said, “Them he divided not :”
for the carnal are divided between themselves, but the spiritual never:
whether they retire themselves from conversing with the affairs of man,
like the turtle-dove, or live amongst them, like the pigeon.

Both these birds are simple and harmless, signifying that even in
Israel who should possess that land, there should be individual sons of
promise, and heirs of the kingdom of eternity. The birds that fell upon
the sacrifice signified nothing but the airy powers, that feed upon the
contentions and divisions of carnal men. But whereas Abraham sat by
them, that signified that there should be some faithful amongst these
contentions, even unto the end of the world: and the heaviness that
fell upon Abraham towards sun-setting, and that fearful darkness, signi-
fies the sore trouble that the faithful shall endure towards the end of
this world, whereof Christ said in the Gospel: ‘“ Then shall be a great
tribulation, such as was not from the beginning,” &c. And whereas
it was said to Abraham, “ Know assuredly that thy seed shall be a
stranger,” &c., this was a plain prophecy of Israel’s servitude in Egypt,
not that they were to serve four hundred years in this slavish affliction,
but that within four hundred years this was to befall them. For as there
where it is written of Terah, the father of Abraham, that “he lived in
Haran two hundred and five years,” we must note that he lived not
there all this while, but that there he ended these his days; so it is here
said, “‘ They shall be strangers in a land that is not theirs, four hundred
years,” not that their bondage lasted all this time, but that it was ended
at this time: and it is said four hundred years for the fulness of the
number, although there were some more years in the account, whether
you reckon from Abraham’s first receiving of the promise, or from the
birth of his son Isaac, the first of the seed unto whom this was promised ;
for from Abraham’s seventy-fifth year, wherein, as I said before, he first
received the promise, unto the departure of Israel out of Egypt, four
hundred and thirty years, which the apostle mentions in these words:
“This I say, that the law which was four hundred and thirty years
after, cannot disannul the covenant which was confirmed of God before,
or make the promise of none effect.” Now these four hundred and
thirty years might have been called four hundred, because they are not
much more: especially some of them being past when Abraham had
this vision, or when Isaac was born unto his father, being then one
hundred years old, it being five-and-twenty years after the promise, so
that there remained four hundred and five years of the four hundred and
thirty that were to come, and those it pleased God to call four hundred.
So likewise in the other words of God, there is no man doubts but that
they belong unto the people of Israel. But that which follows: “ When
the sun went down there was a darkness, and behold, a smoking furnace
and a firebrand went between the pieces :” this signifies, that in the end
the carnal are to be judged by fire: for as the great and exceeding

112 St Augustine.

affliction of the City of God was signified by the heaviness that fell upon
Abraham towards sunset, that is, towards this world’s end: even so, at
sunset, that is, at this world’s end, does this fire signify that fire, that
shall purge the righteous and devour the wicked. And then the promise
made unto Abraham is a plain mention of the land of Canaan, naming
the eleven nations thereof from the river of Egypt unto the great river
Euphrates: not from the Nile, the great river of Egypt, but from that
little one which divides Egypt and Palestine, on whose bank the city
Rhinocorura stands.

CHAPTER XXV.

Of Hagar, Sarah's bond-woman, whom she gave as concubine unto
Abraham.

Now follow the times of Abraham’s sons, one of Hagar the bondwoman,
the other of Sarah the freewoman, of whom we spoke also in the last
book : but now for this act, Abraham offended not in using of this woman
Hagar as a concubine: for he did it for the sake of offspring, and not for
lust, nor as insulting but obeying his wife: who held that it would be a
comfort unto her barrenness if she got children from her bondwoman by
will, seeing she could get none of herself by nature: using that Jaw that
the apostle speaks of: “The husband hath not power over his own
body, but the wife.” The woman may procure herself children from
the womb of another if she can bear none herself. There is neither
luxury nor uncleanness in such an act. The maid was therefore given
by the wife to the husband, for issue’s sake, and for that end he
took her: neither of them desire the effects of lust, but the fruits of
nature: and when the bondwoman being now with child began to de-
spise her barren mistress, and Sarah suspected her husband for bearing
with her in her pride, Abraham shewed that he was not a captive lover,
but a free father in this, and that it was not his pleasure, but her will
‘that he had fulfilled, and that by her own seeking : that he meddled
with Hagar, but yet was no way entangled in desire unto her: and sowed
the seed of future fruit in her, but yet without yielding to any exorbitant
affection to her: for he told his wife: Thy maid is in thine hand:
use her as it pleaseth thee.” © worthy man that could use his wife
with temperance and his servant with obedience, and both without all
touch of uncleanness !

CHAPTER XXVI.

Of God's promise unto Abraham, that Sarah (though she were old) should
have a son that should be the Sather of the nation, and how this pro
mise was sealed in the mystery of circumcision.

AFTER this Ishmael was born of Hagar, in whom it might be thought
God’s promise to Abraham was fulfilled, for when he talked of making

Of the City of God. {Ts

his steward his heir, God said, “‘ Nay, but thou shalt have an heir of
thine own body.” But lest he should build upon this, in the fourscore
and nineteenth year of his age, God appeared unto him, saying: “I am
the all-sufficient God, walk before Me, and be thou upright: and I will
make My covenant between Me and thee, and will multiply thee ex-
ceedingly.” Then Abraham fell on his face, and God talked with him,
saying: ‘ Behold I make My covenant with thee, thou shalt be a father
of many nations. Nor shall thy name be called Abram any more, but
Abraham : for a father of many nations have I made thee. I will make
thee exceeding fruitful, and many nations, yea even kings shall proceed
of thee: and I will establish My covenant between Me and thee, and
thy seed after thee in their generations ; for an everlasting covenant to
be God to thee and thy seed after thee. And I will give thee and thy
seed after thee a land wherein thou art a stranger, even all the land of
Canaan for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God:” and
God said further unto Abraham: ‘‘ Thou shalt keep My covenant, thou
and thy seed after thee in their generations, this is My covenant which
thou shalt keep between thee and Me, and thy seed after thee: let
every man-child of you be circumcised: that is, you shall circumcise
the foreskin of your flesh, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between
Me and you. Every man-child of eight days old amongst you shall be
circumcised in your generation, as well, he that is born in thine house,
or he that is bought of any stranger which is not of thy seed: both
must be circumcised, so My covenant shall be eternally in you. But
the uncircumcised man-child, and he in whose flesh the foreskin is
not circumcised, shall be cut off from his people, because he hath
broken My covenant.” And God said more unto Abraham. “Sarai thy
wife shall be no more called Sarai, but Sarah, and I will bless her, and will
give thee a son of her, and I will bless her, and she shall be the mother
of nations, yea even of kings. Then Abraham fell upon his face and
laughed in his heart, saying: Shall he that is a hundred years old have
a child? and shall Sarah that is ninety years old, bear? and Abraham
said unto God, Oh let Ishmael live in Thy sight: and God said unto
Abraham : Sarah thy wife shall bear a son indeed, and thou shalt call
his name Isaac, I will establish My covenant with him as an everlasting
covenant, and I will be his God, and the God of his seed after him: as
concerning Ishmael, I have heard thee: for I have blessed him, and
will multiply and increase him exceedingly : twelve princes shall he
beget, and I will make him a great nation. But My covenant will I
establish with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear unto thee next year by this
time.” Here now is the calling of the nations plainly promised in
Isaac, that is, in the son of promise, signifying grace, and not nature, for
a son is promised unto an old man, by a barren old woman, and
although God works according to the course of nature, yet where
that nature is withered and wasted, there such. an effect as this is God’s
H

1t4 St Augustine,

evident work, more evidently manifesting grace; and because this
was not to come by generation, but regeneration afterwards, therefore
was circumcision commanded now, when this son was promised unto
Sarah: and whereas all children, servants unborn, and strangers, are
commanded to be circumcised, this shews that grace belongs unto all
the world : for what does circumcision signify but the putting off cor-
ruption, and the renovation of nature? and what does the eighth day
signify but Christ that rose again in the end of the week, the Sabbath
being fulfilled? The very names of these parents being changed, all
signifies that newness, which is shadowed in the types of the Old Testa-
ment, in which the New one lies prefigured: for why is it called the
Old Testament, except that it shadows the New? and what is the
New Testament but the opening of the Old one? Now Abraham is
said to laugh, but this was the extremity of his joy, not any sign of his
deriding this promise upon distrust: and his thoughts being these:
“Shall he that is an hundred years old,” &c., are not doubts of the
events, but marvellings caused by so strange an event. Now if some
stop at that where God says, ‘‘ He will give him all the land of Canaan
for an eternal possession,” how this may be fulfilled, seeing that no man’s
issue can inherit the earth everlastingly ; he must know that eternal is
here taken as the Greeks take a/dvov, which is derived of dv, that is
seculum, an age: but the Latin translation durst not say secwlare, here,
lest it should have been taken in another sense: for secu/are and tran-
sitortum are both alike used for things that last but for a little space:
but a/wvov, is that which is either endless at all, or ends not until the
world’s end : and in this latter sense is eferna/ used here.

CHAPTER XXVII.

Of the man-child, that if it were not circumcised the eighth day, tt perished
Jor breaking of God’s covenant.

SoME also may scruple at the understanding of these words: “The
man-child in whose flesh the foreskin is not circumcised, that person
shall be cut off from his people, because he has broken My covenant.”
Here is no fault of the child’s who is here exposed to destruction: he
broke no covenant of God’s, but his parents, that looked not to his
circumcision ; unless you say that the youngest child has broken God’s
command and covenant as well as the rest, in the first man, in whom
all mankind sinned. For there are many Testaments or Covenants of
God, besides the old and new, those two so great ones, that every one
may read and know. The first covenant was this, unto Adam : “ When-
soever thou eatest thereof, thou shalt die the death.” Whereupon it is
written in Ecclesiasticus ; “ All flesh waxeth old as a garment, and it is a
covenant from the beginning that all sinners shall die the death,” for

Of the City of God. 115

whereas the law was afterwards given, and that brought the more light
to man’s judgment in sin: as the Apostle says, ‘‘ Where no law is there
is no transgression:” how is that true that the Psalmist said: ‘I
accounted all the sinners of the earth transgressors,” unless every man
is guilty in his own conscience of somewhat that he has done against
some law? and therefore seeing that little children (as the true faith
teaches) be guilty of original sin, though not of actual, whereupon we
confess that they must necessarily have the grace of the remission of
their sins; then verily in this, they are breakers of God’s covenant,
made with Adam in Paradise: so that both the Psalmist’s saying, and
the Apostle’s, is true: and consequently, seeing that circumcision was a
type of regeneration, justly shall the child’s original sin (breaking the
first covenant that ever was made between God and man) cut him off
from his people, unless that regeneration engraft him into the body of
the true religion. This then we must conceive that God spake: ‘“‘He
that is not regenerate, shall perish from amongst his people, because he
has broken My covenant, in offending Me in Adam.” For if He had
said, “he has broken this my covenant,” it could have been meant of
nothing but the circumcision only: but seeing He says not what cove-
nant the child breaks, we must needs understand Him to mean of a
covenant liable unto the transgression of the child. But if any one will
tie it unto circumcision, and say that that is the covenant which the
uncircumcised child has broken, let him beware of absurdity in saying
that he breaks their covenant which is not broken by him, but in him
only. But howsoever we shall find the child’s condemnation to come
only from his original sin, and not from any negligence of his own incur-
ring this breach of the covenant.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

Of the changing of Abram and Sarai’s names, who being, the one too
barren, and both too old, to have children, yet by God's bounty were
both made fruitful.

Tuus this great and evident promise being made unto Abraham in these
words: ‘A father of many nations have I made thee, and I will make
thee exceeding fruitful: and nations, yea even kings shall proceed from
thee:” (which promise we see most evidently fulfilled in Christ) from
that time the man and wife are called no more Abram and Sarai, but
as we called them before, and all the world calls them: Abraham
and Sarah. But why was Abram’s name changed? the reason follows
immediately, upon the change, for, “a father of many nations have I
made thee.” ‘This is signified by Abraham: now Abram (his former
name) is interpreted, an high father. But for the change of Sarah’s
name, there is no reason given; but as they say that have interpreted

116 St Augustine.

those Hebrew names, Sarai is my Princess: and Sarah, strength:
whereupon it is written in the Epistle to the Hebrews, ‘By faith Sarah
received strength to conceive seed,” &c. Now they were both old,
as the Scripture says, but she was barren also. It had ceased to be with
Sarah after the manner of women, so that she could no longer have
borne children even if she had not been barren. And ifa woman be
well in years, and yet retains the custom of women, she may conceive
by a young man, but never by an old: as the old man may beget
children, but it must be upon a young woman, as Abraham after Sarah’s
death did upon Keturah, because she was of a youthful age as yet.
This therefore is that which the apostle so highly wonders at, and
hereupon he says that “ Abraham’s body was dead,” because he was not
able to beget a child upon any woman that was not wholly past her age
vi child-bearing: but only of those that were in the prime and flower
thereof. For his body was dead to some purposes though not to all ;
otherwise it should have been a corpse fit for a grave, not an ancient
father upon earth. Besides the gift of begetting children that God gave
him, lasted after Sarah’s death, and he begat divers upon Keturah, and
this clears the doubt that his body was not simply dead ; I mean unto
generation. But I like the other answer better, because a man in those
days was not in his weakest age at a hundred years, although the men
of our times be so, and cannot beget a child of any woman: they
might, for they lived far longer, and had abler bodies than we have.

CHAPTER XXIX.

Of the three men, or angels, in whom God appeared to Abraham in
the plain of Mamre.

Gop appeared unto Abraham in the plain of Mamre in three men, who
‘doubtless were angels, though some think that one of them was Christ,
and that He was visible before His Incarnation. It is indeed in the
power of the unchangeable, uncorporal, and invisible Deity to appear
unto man visible whensoever it pleases, without any alteration of itself:
not in His own form but in some creature subject unto it; as what is it
that He rules not over? But if they ground that one of these three
was Christ, upon this, that Abraham when he saw three men, saluted
the Lord peculiarly, bowing to the ground at the door of his tent, and
saying, “ Lord, if I have found favour in Thy sight,” &c. Why do they
not observe that when two came to destroy Sodom, Abraham spoke yet
but unto one of them that remained (calling him Lord, and entreating
him not to destroy the righteous with the wicked), and those two were
entertained by Lot, who notwithstanding called either of them by the
name of Lord? For speaking to them both, “ My Lords,” said he, “I
pray you turn in unto your servant’s house,” &c., and yet afterwards we

Of the City of God. TT?

read: and the angels took him, and his wife, and his two daughters by
the hands, the Lord being merciful unto him: and they brought him
forth, and set him without the city, and when they had so done, the
angels said, “‘ Escape for thy life, look not behind thee, neither tarry in
all the plain, but escape to the mountains lest thou be destroyed,”
and he said, “ Not so, I pray Thee, my Lord,” &c., and afterward, the
Lord being in these two angels, answered him as in one, saying:
“Behold, I have received thy request,” &c., and therefore it is far more
likely that Abraham knew the Lord to be in them all three, and Lot, in
the two, unto whom, they continually spoke in the singular number,
even then when they thought them to be men, than otherwise. For
they entertained them at first only to give them meat and lodging in
charity, as unto poor men: but yet there was some excellent mark in
them whereby their hosts might be assured, that the Lord was in them,
as He used to be in the prophets: and therefore they sometimes called
them Lords in the plural number, as speaking to themselves, and some-
times Lord, in the singular, as speaking to God inthem. But the Scrip-
tures themselves testify that they were angels, not only in this place of
Genesis, but in the Epistle to the Hebrews where the Apostle com-
mending hospitality: “whereby some,” says he, “have entertained
angels unawares :” these three men therefore confirmed the promise of
Isaac the second time, and said unto Abraham: “ He shall be a great
and mighty nation, and in him shall the nations of the earth be blessed.”
Here is a plain prophecy both of the bodily nation of the Israelites,
and the spiritual nations of the righteous.

CHAPTER XXX.
Lot's deliverance: Sodom’s destruction: Abimelech’s lust, Sarah's chastity.

Arter this promise was Lot delivered out of Sodom, and the whole
territory of that wicked city consumed by a shower of fire from heaven:
and all those parts where masculine bestiality was as allowable by
custom as any other act is by other laws. Besides, this punishment of
theirs was a type of the day of judgment: and what does the angels’
forbidding them to look back, signify, but that the regenerate must never
return to his old courses, if he mean to escape the terror of the last
judgment? Lot’s wife, where she looked back, there was she fixed,
and being turned into a pillar of salt, serves to season the hearts of the
faithful, to take heed by such example. After this, Abraham did with
his wife Sarah at Gerar, in King Abimelech’s court, as he had done
- before in Egypt, and her chastity was in like manner preserved, and she
returned to her husband. Where Abraham, when the King chides him
for concealing that she was his wife, opened his fear, and withal, told
him, saying, “She is my sister indeed, for she is my father’s daughter.

118 St Augustine.

but not my mother’s, and she is my wife:” and so she was indeed both
these, and withal of such beauty, that she was lovable even at those
years.

CHAPTER XXXI.

Of Isaac, born at the time prefixed, and named so, because of his
parents laughter.

AFTER this Abraham, according to God’s promise, had a son by Sarah,
and called him Isaac, that is, ‘Laughter :’ for his father laughed for joy
and wonder when he was first promised: and his mother when the three
men confirmed this promise again laughed also, between joy, and doubt:
the angel shewing her that her laughter was not full of faith, though it
were joyful. Hence had the child his name: for this laughter belonged
not to the recording of reproach, but to the celebration of gladness, as
Sarah shewed when Isaac was born and called by this name: for she
said, “God has made me to laugh, and all that hear me will rejoice
with me:” and soon after the bondwoman and her son are cast out of
the house in signification of the old covenant, as Sarah does the new
(as the Apostle says) and that glorious City of God, Jerusalem, which is
above.

CHAPTER XXXII.

Abraham's faith and obedtence proved in his intent to offer his son:
Sarah’s death,

To omit many accidents for brevity’s sake, Abraham (for a trial) was
commanded to go and sacrifice his dearest son Isaac, that his true
obedience might shew itself to all the world in that shape, which God
knew already that it bore. This now was a temptation without blame in
itself (and some such there be) and was to be taken thankfully, as one of
God’s trials of man. And generally man’s mind can never know itself
well, but putting forth itself upon trials, and experimental hazards, and
by their events it learns its own state, wherein if it acknowledge God’s
enabling it, it is godly, and confirmed in solidity of grace, against all
the bladder-like humours of vainglory. Abraham would never believe
that God could take delight in sacrifices of man’s flesh ; though God’s
thundering commands are to be obeyed, not questioned upon, yet is
Abraham commended for having a firm faith and belief, that his son
Isaac should rise again after he were sacrificed. For when he would
not obey his wife in casting out the bondwoman and her son, God said
unto him: “In Isaac shall thy seed be called:” and adds: “Of the
bondwoman’s son will I make a great nation also, because he is thy
seed :” how then is Isaac only called Abraham’s seed, when God called
Ishmael so likewise? The apostle expounds it in these words ; that is,

Of the City of God, 18 fe)

“They which are the children of the flesh, are not the children of God,
but the children of the promise are accounted for the seed.” And thus
are the sons of promise called to be Abraham’s seed in Isaac, that is,
gathered into the Church by Christ’s free grace and mercy. This pro-
mise the father holding fast, seeing that it must be fulfilled in him whom
God commanded to kill, doubted not but that that God could restore him
after sacrificing, who had given him at first beyond all hope. So the
Scripture takes his belief to have been, and delivers it. ‘‘ By faith
Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received
the promises offered up his only-begotten son: of whom it was said, In
Isaac shall thy seed be called: accounting that God was able to raise him
even from the dead:” and then follows, ‘‘ from whence also he received
him in a figure: ” in what sort but as He received His son, of whom it is
said: “Who spared not His own Son, but gave Him to die for us all:”
and so did Isaac carry the wood of sacrifice to the place, even as Christ
carried the cross. Lastly, seeing Isaac was not to be slain indeed, and
his father commanded to hold his hand, who was that ram that was
offered as a full (and typical) sacrifice? Namely, that which Abraham
first of all espied entangled in the bushes by the horns. What was this
but a type of Jesus Christ, crowned with thorns ere He was crucified?
But mark the angel’s words, “ Abraham,” says the Scriptures, “lift up his
hand and took the knife to kill his son:” but the angel of the Lord
called unto him from heaven saying, ‘‘ Abraham!” and he answered,
“Here, Lord:” then he said: “ Lay not thy hand upon the lad, neither
do thou anything unto him, for now I know thou fearest God, seeing that
for My sake thou hast not spared thine only son.” Now I know, that
is, now I have made known: for God knew it ere now. And then
Abraham having offered the ram for his son Isaac, called the place “the
Lord hath seen:” as it is said unto this day: “ In the mount hath the
Lord appeared,” and the angels of the Lord called unto Abraham again
out of heaven, saying: ‘‘ By myself have I sworn,” says the Lord,
“because thou hast done this thing and hast not spared thine only son
for Me: surely I will bless thee and multiply thy seed as the stars of
heaven or the sands of the sea, and thy seed shall possess the gate of
his enemies; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be
blessed, because thou hast obeyed My voice.” ‘This is that promise
sworn unto by God concerning the calling of the Gentiles after the
offering of the ram, the type of Christ. God had often promised before,
but never sworn. And what is God’s oath but a confirmation of His
promise and a reprehension of the faithless? After this died Sarah, being
one hundred and twenty-seven years old, in the hundred and thirty-
seventh year of her husband’s age, for he was ten years older than she:
as he shewed when Isaac was first promised, saying, “Shall I that am
a hundred years old have a child?” and shall Sarah that is fourscore
and ten years old, bear? And then did Abraham buy a piece of ground

120 St Augustine.

and buried his wife in it: and then (as Stephen says) was he seated in
that land: for then began he to be a possessor, namely, after the death
of his father, who was dead some two years before.

CHAPTER XXXIII.
Of Rebecca, Nahor's grand-daughter, whom Isaac married.

THEN Isaac, being forty years old, married Rebecca, the grand-daughter
to his uncle Nahor, three years after his mother’s death, his father being
one hundred and forty years old. And when Abraham sent his servant
into Mesopotamia to fetch her, and said unto him, “ Put thine hand
under my thigh, and I will make thee swear thee by the Lord God of
heaven and the Lord of earth that thou shalt not take my son Isaac a
wife of the daughters of Canaan,” what is meant by this, but the Lord
God of heaven and the Lord of earth that was to proceed of those loins ?
are these mean prophecies and presages of that which we see now fulfilled
in Christ.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

Of Abraham marrying Keturah after Sarah’s death, and the
meaning therefore.

But what is meant by Abraham’s marrying Keturah after Sarah’s
death? God defend us from suspect of incontinency in him, being so
old, and so holy and faithful: desired he more sons, God having pro-
mised ‘‘to make the seed of Isaac as the stars of heaven and the sands
of the earth”? But if Hagar and Ishmael did signify the mortals to the
Old Testament (as the apostle teaches), why may not Keturah and her
sons signify the mortals belonging to the New Testament. They both
were called Abraham’s wives, and his concubines. But Sarah was never
-called his concubine, but his wife only, for it is thus written of Sarah’s
giving Hagar unto Abraham, “ Then Sarah, Abraham’s wife, took Hagar
the Egyptian, her maid, after Abraham had dwelt ten years in the land
of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abraham for his wife.” And ot
Keturah we read thus of his taking her after Sarah’s death: “Now
Abraham had taken him another wife called Keturah:” here now you
hear them both called his wives: but the Scripture calls them both his
concubines also, saying afterwards, ‘‘ Abraham gave all his goods unto
Isaac,” but unto the sons of his concubines he gave gifts, and sent them
away from Isaac his son (while he yet lived) eastward, into the east
country. Thus the concubines’ sons have some gifts but none of them
attain the promised kingdom, neither the carnal Jews, nor the heretics
for none are heirs but Isaac: “For they which are the children of
the flesh these are not the children of God: but the children of the
promise are counted for the seed, of whom it was said: In Isaac shal]

Of the City of God. 121

thy seed be called:” for I cannot see how Keturah whom he married

after Sarah’s death should be called his concubine but in this respect.

But he that will not understand these things thus, let him not slander

Abraham: for what if this were appointed by God, to shew those future _
heretics that deny second marriage in this great father of so many

nations, that it is no sin to marry after the first wife be dead. Now

Abraham died, being a hundred and seventy-five years old, and Isaac

(whom he begat when he was a hundred) was seventy-five years of age

at his death.

CHAPTER XXXV.
Lhe appointment of God concerning the two twins in Rebecca’s womb.

Now let us see the proceedings of the City of God after Abraham’s
death. So then from Isaac’s birth to the sixtieth year of his age
(wherein he had children) there is this one thing to be noted, that when
as he had prayed for her fruitfulness (who was barren) and that God had
heard him, and opened her womb, and she conceived, the two twins
played in her womb: wherewith she being troubled, asked the Lord’s
pleasure, and was answered thus: ‘‘Two nations are in thy womb, and
two manner of people shall be divided out of thy bowels, and the one
shall be mightier than the other, and the elder shall serve the younger.”
Wherein Peter the apostle understands the great mystery of grace: in
that ere they were born, and either done evil or good, the one was
elected and the other rejected: and doubtless as concerning origina]
sin, both were alike, and guilty, and as concerning actual, both alike
and clear. But my intent in this work, curbs me from further dis-
course of this point: we have handled it in other volumes. But that
saying: “‘ The elder shall serve the younger :” all men interpret of the
Jews serving the Christians, and though it seem fulfilled in Idumea,
which came of the elder, Esau or Edom (for he had two names), because
it was afterward subdued by the Israelites that came of the younger, yet
notwithstanding that prophecy must needs have a greater intent than so:
and what is that but to be fulfilled in the Jews and the Christians?

CHAPTER XXXVI.

Of a promise and blessing received by Isaac, in the manner that Abraham
had received his.

Now Isaac received such an instruction from God, as his father had
done divers times before. It is recorded thus: ‘‘ There was a famine
in the land besides the first famine that was in Abraham’s time: and
Isaac went to Abimelech, king of the Philistines in Gerar. And the
Lord appeaned unto him and said: Go not down into Egypt, but abide
in the land which I shall shew thee: dwell in this land, and I will be
with thee and bless thee: for to thee and thy seed will I give this land,

122 St Augustine.

and I will establish mine oath which I sware to Abraham thy father:
and will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, and give all this land
unto thy seed: and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be
blessed, because thy father Abraham obeyed My voice, and kept My
ordinances, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws.” Now this
patriarch had no wife nor concubine more than his first, but rested
content with the two sons that God sent him at one birth. And he also
feared his wife’s beauty, amongst those strangers, and did as his father
had done before him, with her, calling her sister only, and not wife.
She was indeed his kinswoman both by father and mother: but when the
strangers knew that she was his wife, they let her quietly alone with him.
We do not prefer him before his father though, because he had only one
wife: without all doubt his father’s obedience was of the greater merit, so
that for his sake God says that He will do Isaac that good that He did
him. “In thy seed shall all the nations of the world be blessed,” says
He, “because thy father Abraham obeyed My voice,” &c. Again, says
He, “I am the God of Abraham thy father, fear not: for I am with thee,
and have blessed thee, and will multiply thy seed for my servant Abra-
ham’s sake.” To shew all those carnally minded men that think it was
lust that made Abraham do as it is recorded, that he did it with no lust
at all, but a chaste intent: teaching us besides that we ought not com-
pare men’s worths by singularity, but to take them with all their qualities
together. For a man may excel another in this or that virtue, who
excels him as far in another as good. And albeit it be true that con-
tinence is better than marriage: yet the faithful married man is better
than the continent infidel: for such an one is not only not to be praised
for his continency, since he believes not, but rather highly to be dis-
praised for not believing, seeing he is continent. But to grant them
both good, a married man of great faith and obedience in Jesus Christ
is better than a continent man with less: but if they be equal, who
‘makes any question that the continent man is the more excellent?

CHAPTER XXXVII.
Of Esau and Jacob, and the mysteries included in them both.

So Isaac’s two sons, Esau and Jacob, were brought up together: now
the younger got the birthright of the elder by a bargain made for len-
tiles and pottage which Jacob had prepared, and Esau longed for ex-
ceedingly, and so sold him his birthright for some of them, and confirmed
the bargain with an oath. Here now may we learn that it is not the
kind of meat, but the gluttonous desire that hurts. To proceed. Isaac
grows old, and his sight failed him; he would willingly bless his elder
son, and not knowing, he blessed the younger, who had counterfeited
his brother’s roughness of body by putting goats’ skins upon his neck
and hands, and so let his father feel him. Now, lest some should think

Of the City of God. 123

that this were fraudulent deceit in Jacob, the Scripture says before:
“Esau was a cunning hunter, and lived in the fields, but Jacob was a
simple plain man, and kept at home.” éAaoros, deceitless, one without
counterfeiting: what was the deceit then of this plain-dealing man in
getting of this blessing? what can the guile of a guiltless, true-hearted
soul be in this case, but a deep mystery of the truth? what was the
blessing? “ Behold,” says he, “the smell of my son is as the smell of
a field which the Lord hath blessed ; God give thee therefore of the dew
of heaven and the fatness of earth and plenty of corn and wine: let
the nations be thy servants, and princes bow down unto thee, be lord
over thy brethren, and let thy mother’s children honour thee: cursed be
he that curseth thee, and blessed be he that blesseth thee.” Thus this
blessing of Jacob, is the preaching of Christ unto all the nations. This
is the whole scope, in Isaac is the law and the prophets, and by the
mouths of the Jews is Christ blessed, unknown to them because He
knows not them. The odour of His name fills the world like a field,
the dew of heaven is His divine doctrine, the fertile earth is the faithful
Church, the plenty of corn and wine is the multitude ingrafted in
Christ by the sacraments of His body and blood. Him do nations
serve and princes adore. He is Lord over His brethren, for his people
rule over the Jews. The sons of His father, that is, Abraham’s sons in
the faith, do honour Him. For He is Abraham’s son in the flesh,
“Cursed be he that curseth him, and blessed be he that blesseth him :”
Christ I mean, our Saviour, is blessed that is truly taught by the pro-
phets of the wondering Jews: and is still blessed by others of them that
as yet erroneously expect His coming. And now comes the elder for
the blessing promised: then is Isaac afraid, and knows he had blessed
the one for the other; he wonders, and asks who he was, yet complains
he not of the deceit, but having the mystery thereof opened in his heart,
he forbears fretting, and confirms the blessing. “Who was he then,”
says he, ‘that hunted and took venison for me, and I have eaten of it all
before thou camest, and I have blessed him, yea and he shall be blessed ? ”
Who would not have here expected a curse rather, but that his mind
was altered by a divine inspiration? O true done deeds, but yet all
prophetical: on earth, but all by heaven! by men, but all for God!
whole volumes would not hold all the mysteries that they conceive:
but we must restrain ourselves, the process of the work calls us on
unto other matters.

CHAPTER XXXVIIIJ.

Of Jacol’s journey into Mesopotamia for a wife: his vision in the night, as
he went: his return with four women, whereas he went but for one.

Jacor’s parents sent him into Mesopotamia, there to get a wife. His
father dismissed him with these words. ‘Thou shalt take thee no wife

124 St Augustine.

of the daughters of Canaan : arise, get thee to Mesopotamia, to the house
of Bethuel, thy mother’s father, and thence take thee a wife of the
daughters of Laban, thy mother’s brother. My God bless thee, and
increase thee, and multiply thee, that thou mayest be a multitude of
people: and give the blessing of Abraham to thee and to thy seed after
thee, that thou mayest inherit the land (wherein thou art a stranger)
which God gave Abraham.” Here we see Jacob, the one half of Isaac’s
seed, severed from Esau the other half. For when it was said: “In
Isaac shall thy seed be called,” that is, the seed pertaining to God’s
holy city, then was Abraham’s other seed (the bondwoman’s son)
severed from this other, as Keturah’s was also to be done with after-
wards. But now there was this doubt risen about Isaac’s two sons,
whether the blessing belong but unto one, or unto both: if unto one
only, unto which of them? This was resolved when Isaac said: “That
thou mayest be a multitude of people, and God give the blessing of
Abraham unto thee:” namely, to Jacob. Jacob going forward into
Mesopotamia, had a vision in a dream, recorded thus: “And Jacob
departed from Beersheba, and came to Haran: and he came to a cer-
tain place and tarried there all the night, because the sun was down,
and he took of the stones of the place, and laid under his head,
and slept. And he dreamed, and behold a ladder, and the top of it
reached up to heaven, and lo the angels of God ascended and descended
by it, and the Lord stood above it and said: Iam the Lord God of
Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac, fear not: the land on which
thou sleepest, will I give thee and thy seed, and thy seed shall be as the
dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread over the sea, the east, the north,
and the south. And lo, I am with thee and will keep thee wheresoever
thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land, for I will not forsake
thee, until I have performed that which I promised unto thee.” And
Jacob arose from his sleep, and said: “ Surely the Lord is in this place,
and I knew it not ;” and he was afraid, and said, ‘“ How dreadful is this
place ! surely this is none other but the house of God and the gate of
heaven.” And he arose up and took the stone that he had laid under
his head and set it up for a memorial and poured oil upon the top of
it, and called the name of that place the house of God. This now was
prophetical : he did not idolatrise in pouring oil on the stone, nor made
it a god, nor adored it, nor sacrificed unto it, but because the name of
Christ was to come of Chrisma, that is unction, of that was this a very
significant mystery. Now for the ladder, our Saviour himself mentions
it in the gospel, for having said of N athanael, “ Behold an Israelite indeed,
in whom is no guile” (because Israel, that is, Jacob, saw this sight),
he adds, “ Verily, verily I say unto you, hereafter ye shall see heaven
open and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of
Man.” But to proceed. Jacob went into Mesopotamia to seek a wife ;
where he happened to have four women given him, of whom he begat

A

Of the City of God. 125

twelve sons and one daughter, without affecting any of them lustfully, as
the Scripture shews, for he came but for one, and being deceived by
one for another, he would not turn her away whom he had unwittingly
known, lest he should seem to make her a laughing stock, and so because
the law at that time did not prohibit plurality of wives for increase sake,
he took the other also whom he had promised to marry before: who,
being barren, gave him her maid to beget her children upon, as her
sister had done, who was not barren, and yet did so to have the more
children. But Jacob never desired but one: nor used any but to the
augmentation of his posterity, and that by law of marriage, nor would he
have done this, but that his wives urged it upon him, who had lawful
power of his body because he was their husband. Of these four women
Jacob begot twelve sons and one daughter. And then came the entrance
into Egypt by his son Joseph, whom his brethren envied, and sold thither,
who was preferred there unto great dignity.

CHAPTER XXXIX.
Jacob now called Israel, The reason of this change.

Jacos was also called Israel (as I said before), which name his progeny
bore after him. This name, the angel that wrestled with him as he
returned from Mesopotamia, gave him, being an evident type of Christ.
For whereas Jacob prevailed against him, by his own consent, to form
this mystery, is signified the passion of Christ, wherein the Jews seemed
to prevail against him. And yet Jacob got a blessing from him whom
he had overcome: and the changing of his name was that blessing: for
Israel is as much as “ seeing God,” which shall come to pass in the end
of the world. Now the angel touched him (prevailing) upon the breadth
of his thigh, and so he became lame: so the blessed and the lame was
all but one Jacob: blessed in his faithful descendants, and lame in the
unfaithful. For the breadth of his thigh is the multitude of his issue:
“ of which the greatest part,” as the prophet says, “have halted in their
ways.”
CHAPTER XL.

Jacob's departure into Egypt with seventy-five souls, how to be taken,
seeing some of them were born afterwards.

Irissaid there went with Jacob into Egypt seventy-five souls, counting him-
self and his sons, his daughter, and his grand-daughter. But if you mark
well, you shall find that he had not so numerous a progeny at his entrance
into Egypt. For in this number are J oseph’s great-grandchildrenreckoned,
who could not then be with him. For Jacob was then a hundred and forty
years old, and Joseph thirty-nine, who marrying (as it is recorded) but at
thirty years old, how could his sons in nine years have any sons to increase
this number by? Seeing, then, that Ephraim and Manasseh, Joseph’s sons,

126 St Augustine.

had no children, being but nine years of age at this removal of Jacob’s
stock, how can their sons’ sons, or their sons, be accounted amongst the
seventy-five that went in this company unto Egypt? for there is Machir
reckoned, Manasseh’s son, and Gilaad, Machir’s son, and there is
Shuthelah, Ephraim’s son, reckoned, and Shuthelah’s son Ezer, the
grandson of Ephraim and great-grandson of Joseph. Now these could
not be there, Jacob finding at his coming that Joseph’s children, the
fathers and grandfathers of those four last named, were but children of
nine years old at that time. But this departure of Jacob thither with
seventy-five souls, contains not one day, nor a year, but all the time
that Joseph lived afterwards, by whose means they were placed there :
of whom the Scripture says: “ Joseph dwelt in Egypt, and his brethren
with him, a hundred years, and Joseph saw Ephraim’s children even run
to the third generation :” that was, until he was born who was Ephraim’s
grandchild : unto him was he great-grandfather. The Scripture then pro-
ceeds: Machir’s sons (the son of Manasseh) were brought up on Joseph’s
knees. This was Gilaad, Manasseh’s grandchild: but the Scripture speaks
in the plural, as it does of Jacob’s one daughter, calling her daughters,
as the Latins use to call a man’s only child if he have no more, “liberi,”
‘children.’ Now Joseph’s felicity being so great as to see the fourth from
him in descent, we may not imagine that they were all born when he
was but thirty-nine years old, at which time his father came into Egypt :
and this is that that deceived the ignorant, because it is written : “‘ These
are the names of the children of Israel which came into Egypt with Jacob
their father.” For this is said because the seventy-five are reckoned with
him, not that they all entered Egypt with him. But in this transmigra-
tion and settling in Egypt, is included all the time of Joseph’s life, who
was the means of his settling here.

CHAPTER XLI.
Jacob's blessing unto his son Judah.

So then if we seek the fleshly descent of Christ from Abraham first (for
the good of the City of God, that is still a pilgrim upon earth) Isaac is
the next: and from Isaac, Jacob or Israel, Esau or Edom being re-
jected : from Israel, Judah (all the rest being debarred) for from his tribe
came Christ. And therefore Israel at his death blessing his sons in
Egypt, gave Judah this prophetical blessing: “Judah, thy brethren
shall praise thee: thine hand shall be on the neck of thine enemies:
thy father’s sons shall adore thee. As a lion’s whelp (Judah) shalt thou
come up from the spoil, my son. He shall lie down and sleep as a
lion, or a lion’s whelp; who shall rouse him? The sceptre shall not
depart from Judah, nor a law-giver from between his feet, until Shiloh
come, and the people be gathered unto him. He shall bind his
foal unto the vine, and his ass’s foal unto the choice vine: he shall

Of the City of God. 127

wash his robe in wine, and his garment in the blood of the grape, his
eyes shall be red with wine, and his teeth white with milk.” These I
have explained against Faustus the Manichee, as far, I think, as the
prophecy requires. Where Christ’s death is presaged in the word
sleep, as not of necessity, but of His power to die, as the lion had to lie
down and sleep: which power He Himself avows in the gospel: “I
have power to lay down My life, and power to take it again: no man
taketh it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself,” &c. So the lion roared,
so fulfilled what was spoken: for that same, ‘Who shall rouse him?”
belongs to the resurrection: for none could raise Him again, but He
Himself that said of His body : “ Destroy this temple and in three days
I will raise it up again.” Now this manner of death upon the high
cross, is intimated in this: “Shalt thou come up:” and these words,
‘He shall lie down and sleep,” are even these: ‘‘ He bowed down His
head and give up the ghost.” Or it may mean the grave wherein He
slept, and from whence none could raise Him up, as the prophets and
He Himself had raised others, but Himself raised Himself as from a
sleep. Now His robe which He washed in wine, that is, cleansed from
sin in His blood (intimating the sacrament of baptism, as that addition,
“And His garment in the blood of the grape,” expresses) what is it
but the Church? and “eyes being red with wine:” are His spiritual
sons that are drunk with her cup, as the Psalmist says: ‘“ My cup
runneth over;” and His teeth whiter than the milk, are His nourish-
ing words wherewith He feeds His little weaklings as with milk. This
is He in whom the promises to Judah were laid up, which until they
came, there never wanted kings of Israel of the stock of Judah. And
unto Him shall the people be gathered: this is plainer to the sight to
conceive, than the tongue to utter.

CHAPTER XLII.

Of Jacob's changing his hands over the heads of Joseph's sons when
he blessed them.

Bur as Esau and Jacob, Isaac’s two sons, prefigured the two peoples
of Jews and Christians (although in the flesh, the Idumeans, and not
the Jews, came of Esau, nor the Christians from Jacob, but rather the
Jews, for thus must the words, “The elder must serve the younger,”
be understood), even so it was in Joseph’s two sons, the elder prefiguring
the Jews, and the younger the Christians. Which two, Jacob in bless-
ing laid his right hand upon the younger, who was on his left side, and
his left upon the elder, who was on his night side. This displeased
their father, who told his father of it, to get him to reform the supposed
mistaking, and shewed him which was the elder. But Jacob would
not change his hands, but said, ‘‘I know, my son, I know very well: he
shall be a great people also: but his younger brother shall be greater

128 St Augustine.

than he, and his seed shall fill the nations.” Here are two promises
now, a people to the one, and a fulness of nations to the other. What
greater proof need we than this, to establish, that the Israelites, and all
the world besides, are contained in Abraham’s seed: the first in the
flesh, and the latter in the spirit.

CHAPTER XLIII.

Of the times of Moses, Joshua, the Judges, the Kings, Saul the first,
David the chief, both in merit and in mystical reference.

Jacos and Joseph being dead, the Israelites in the other hundred and
forty-four years (at the end of which they left Egypt) increased wonder-
fully, though the Egyptians oppressed them sore, and once killed all
their male children for fear of their marvellous increase. But Moses
was saved from those butchers, and brought up in the court by
Pharaoh’s daughter (the name of the Egyptian kings), God intending
great things by him; and he grew up to that worth that he was held fit
to lead the nation out of this extreme slavery, or rather God did it by
him, according to His promise to Abraham. First, he fled into Midian,
for killing an Egyptian in defence of an Israelite: and afterwards re-
turning full of God’s Spirit, he foiled the enchanters of Pharaoh in all
their opposition: and laid the ten great plagues upon the Egyptians,
because they would not let Israel depart—namely, the changing of
the water into blood, the frogs and lice, the flies, the murrain of
cattle, the botches and sores, the hail, the locusts, the darkness,
and the death of all the first-born: and lastly the Israelites being
permitted, after all the plagues that Egypt had groaned under, to
depart, and yet being pursued afterwards by them again, passed
over the Red Sea dry foot, and left all the host of Egypt drowned
in the middle: the sea opened before the Israelites, and shut after
‘them, returning upon the pursuers and overwhelming them. And then
forty years after was Israel in the deserts with Moses, and there had they
the tabernacle of the testimony, where God was served with sacrifices,
that were all figures of future events: the law being now given with
terror upon Mount Sinai: for the terrible voices and thunders were full
proofs that God was there: and this was presently after their departure
from Egypt in the wilderness, and there they celebrated their Passover
fifty days after, by offering of a lamb, the true type of Christ’s passing
unto His Father by His passion in this world. For “ pascha,” in Hebrew,
is a passing over: and so the fiftieth day after the opening of the New
Testament, and the offering of Christ our Passover, the Holy Spirit
descended down from heaven (He whom the Scriptures call the Finger
of God), to renew the memory of the first miraculous prefiguration in
our hearts, because the law in the tables is said to be written by the
finger of God. Moses being dead, Joshua ruled the people, and led

Of the City of God. 129

them into the land of promise, dividing it amongst them. And by
these two glorious captains, were strange battles won, and they were
ended with happy success: God Himself avouching that the losers’ sins,
and not the winners’ merits were the causes of those conquests. After
these two, the land of promise was ruled by Judges, that Abraham’s
seed might see the first promise fulfilled, concerning the land of Canaan,
though not as yet concerning the nations of all the earth: for that was
to be fulfilled by the coming of Christ in the flesh, and the faith of the
gospel, not the precepts of the law, which was insinuated in this, that it
was not Moses that received the law, but Joshua (whose name God also
changed) that led the people into the promised land. But in the times of
the Judges, as the people offended or obeyed God, so varied their fortunes
in war. On unto the Kings, Saul was the first king of Israel, who being
a reprobate, and dead in the field, and all his race rejected from ability
of succession, David was enthroned, whose son our Saviour is especially
called: “ In him is as it were a point, from whence the people of God
do flow,” whose original (as then being in the youthful time thereof) is
drawn from Abraham unto this David. For it is not out of neglect that
Matthew the Evangelist reckoned the descents so, that he puts fourteen
generations between Abraham and David. For a man may be able to
beget in his youth, and therefore he begins his genealogies from Abra-
ham, who upon the changing of his name, was made the father of many
nations. So that before him, the Church of God was in the infancy, as
it were: from Noah I mean, unto him ; and therefore the first language,
the Hebrew as then was invented to speak by. For from the term of
one’s infancy, he begins to speak, being called an infant, “a non
fando,” of not speaking, which age of himself, every man forgets as
fully as the world was destroyed by the deluge. For who can remember
his infancy? Wherefore in this progress of the City of God, as the last
book contains the first age thereof, so let this contain the second and
the third, when the yoke of the law was laid on their necks, the abund-
ance of sin appeared, and the earthly kingdom had beginning, &c.,
intimated “by the heifer, the goat, and the ram of three years old:” in
which there wanted not some faithful persons, “as the turtle-dove and
the pigeon” portended.

THE SEVENTEENTH BOOK _OF THE CITY
OF GOD.

—:0:—-—

CHAPTER I.
Of the times of the Prophets.

HUS have we attained the understanding of God’s promises made
unto Abraham, and due unto Israel, his seed in the flesh, and to

all the nations of earth as his seed in the spirit: how they were
fulfilled the progress of the City of God in those times did manifest.
Now because our last book ended at the reign of David, let us in
this book proceed with the same reign, as far as is requisite. All
the time, therefore, between Samuel’s first prophecy and the return
of Israel from seventy years’ captivity in Babylon, to repair the Temple (as
Jeremiah had prophesied), all this is called “ the time of the Prophets.”
For although that the patriarch Noah, in whose time the universal deluge
befell, and divers others living before there were kings in Israel, for some
holy and heavenly predictions of theirs, may not undeservedly be called
prophets: especially seeing we see Abraham and Moses chiefly called
by those names, and more expressly than the rest: yet the days wherein
Samuel began to prophesy, were called peculiarly “the times of the Pro-
phets.” Samuel anointed Saul first, and afterwards (he being rejected) he
anointed David for king, by God’s express command, and from David’s
loins was all the blood-royal to descend, during that kingdom’s con-
tinuance. But if I should rehearse all that the prophets (each in his
time) successively foretold of Christ during all this time that the City of
God continued in those times, and members of His, I should never
make an end. First, because the Scriptures, though they seem but a
bare relation of the successive deeds of each king in his time, yet being
considered, with the assistance of God’s Spirit, will prove either more,
or as fully, prophecies of things to come, as histories of things past.
And how laborious it were to stand upon each peculiar hereof, and

Of the City of God. 131

how huge a work it would amount unto, who knows not that has any
insight herein. Secondly, because the prophecies concerning Christ and
His kingdom (the City of God) are so many in multitude, that the dis-
putations arising hereof would not be contained in a far bigger volume
than is necessary for my intent. So that as I will restrain my pen as near
as I can from all superfluous relations in this work, so will I not omit
anything that shall be really pertinent unto our purpose.

CHAPTER II.

At what time God's promise concerning the land of Canaan was fulfilled,
and Israel received tt to dwell in and possess.

WE said in the last book that God promised two things unto Abraham,
one was the possession of the land of Canaan for his seed, in these
words, “Go into the land that I will shew thee, and I will make thee
a great nation,” &c. The other of far more excellence, not concerning
the carnal, but the spiritual seed: nor Israel only, but all the believing
nations of the world: in these words, “In thee shall all nations of the
earth be blessed,” &c. This we confirmed by many testimonies. Now,
therefore, was Abraham’s carnal seed, that is—the Israelites, in the land
of promise: now had they towns, cities, yea, and kings therein, and
God’s promises were performed unto them in great measure: not only
those that He made by signs, or by word of mouth unto Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob: but even those also that Moses who brought them
out of the Egyptian bondage, or any other after him unto this instant,
had promised them from God. But the promise concerning the land of
Canaan, that Israel should reign over it from the river of Egypt unto
the great Euphrates, was neither fulfilled by Joshua, that worthy leader
of them into the land of promise, and he that divided the whole amongst
the twelve tribes, nor by any other of the judges in all the time after
him: nor were there any more prophecies that it was to come, but at
this instant it was expected. And by David, and his son Solomon, it
was fulfilled indeed, and their kingdom enlarged as far as was promised :
for these two made all those nations their servants and tributaries. Thus
then was Abraham’s seed in the flesh so settled in this land of Canaan
by these kings, that now no part of the earthly promise was left unful-
filled: but that the Hebrews, obeying God’s commandments, might
continue their dominion therein, without all disturbance, and in all
security and happiness of estate. But God knowing they would not do
it, used some temporal afflictions to exercise the few faithful therein that
He had left, and by them to give warning to all His servants that the
nations were afterwards to contain, who were to be warned by those, as
in whom He was to fulfil His other promise, by opening the New Testa-
ment in the death of Christ.

132 St Augustine.

CHAPTER III.

The prophets’ three meanings : of the earthly Jerusalem, of the heavenly
Jerusalem, and of both.

WHEREFORE, as those prophecies spoken to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, or
any other in the times before the kings, so likewise all that the prophets
spoke afterwards, had their double reference, partly to Abraham’s seed
in the flesh, and partly to that wherein all the nations of the earth are
blessed in him, being made co-heirs with Christ in the glory and king-
dom of heaven, by this new covenant. So then they concern partly
the bondwoman, bringing forth unto bondage, that is, the earthly
Jerusalem, which serves with her sons, and partly to the free City of
God, the true Jerusalem, eternal and heavenly, whose children are pil-
grims upon earth in the way of God’s word. And there are some that
belong unto both, properly, to the bondwoman, and figuratively unto
the freewoman : for the prophets have a triple meaning in their pro-
phecies: some concerning the earthly Jerusalem, some the heavenly,
and some, both: as, for example, the Prophet Nathan was sent to tell
David of his sin, and to foretell him the evils that should ensue thereof.
Now who doubts that these words concerned the temporal city, whether
they were spoken publicly for the peoples’ general good, or privately for
some man’s knowledge, for some temporal use in the life present? But
now whereas we read, “ Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I
will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and the house of
Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers
when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt,
which covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them,
saith the Lord: but this is the covenant that I will make with the house
of Israel; after those days,” saith the Lord, “I will put my law in their
minds, and write it in their hearts, and I will be their God, and they
shall be My people.” This without all doubt, is a prophecy of the
celestial Jerusalem, to whom God Himself stands as a reward, and unto
whom the enjoying of Him is the perfection of good. Yet belongs it
unto them both in that the earthly Jerusalem was called God’s city,
and His house promised to be therein, which seemed to be fulfilled in
Solomon’s building of that magnificent temple. These things were both
relations of things acted on earth, and figures of things concerning
heaven, which kind of prophecy compounded of both, is of great efficacy
in the canonical Scriptures of the Old Testament, and does exercise the
readers of Scripture very laudably in seeking how the things that are
spoken of Abraham’s carnal seed are allegorically fulfilled in his seed by
faith: in so much that some held that there was nothing in the Scrip-
tures foretold and effected, or effected without being foretold, that inti-
mated not something belonging unto the City of God, and to be referred
unto the holy pilgrims thereof upon earth. But if this be so, we shall

Of the City of God. 133

tie the prophets’ words unto two meanings only, and exclude the third :
and not only the prophets, but even all the Old Testament. For
therein must be nothing peculiar to the earthly Jerusalem, if all that be
spoken or fulfilled of that, ‘have a farther reference to the heavenly
Jerusalem: so that the prophets must needs speak but in two sorts,
either in respect of the heavenly Jerusalem, or else of both. But as I
think it a great error in some, to hold no relation of things done, in the
Scriptures, more than merely historical: so do I hold it a great boldness
in them that bind all the relations of Scripture unto allegorical refer-
ence, and therefore I avouch the meanings in the Scriptures, to be
triple, and not twofold only. This I hold, yet blame I not those that
can pick a good spiritual sense out of anything they read, so they do
not contradict the truth of the history. But what faithful man will not
say that those are vain sayings that can belong neither to divinity nor
humanity? and who will not avow that these of which we did speak,
are to have a spiritual interpretation also, or leave them unto those that
can interpret them in that manner ?

CHAPTER IV.

The change of the kingdom and priesthood of Israel. Hannah, Samuel's
mother, a prophetess, and a type of the Church: what she prophesied.

TuE progress therefore of the City of God in the king’s time, when
Saul was reproved, and David chosen in his place to possess the king-
dom of Jerusalem for him and his posterity successively, signifies and
prefigures that which we may not omit, namely, the future change con-
cerning the two covenants, the old and the new, where the old king-
dom and priesthood was changed by that new and eternal King and
Priest Christ Jesus; for Eli being rejected, Samuel was made both the
priest and the judge of God: and Saul being rejected, David was
chosen for the king, and these two being thus seated, signified the
change that I spake of. And Samuel’s mother, Hannah, being first
barren, and afterwards by God’s goodness made fruitful, seems to pro-
phesy nothing but this in her song of rejoicing, when having brought
up her son she dedicated him unto God as she had vowed, saying:
“ My heart rejoiceth in the Lord, my horn is exalted in the Lord: my
mouth is enlarged on mine enemies, because I rejoiced in Thy salva-
tion. There is none holy as the Lord: there is no God like our God,
nor any holy besides Thee. Speak no more presumptuously, let no arro-
gancy come out of your mouth, for the Lord is a God of knowledge,
and by Him are enterprises established: the bow of the mighty men
hath He broken, and girded the weak with strength, they that were full
are hired forth for hunger: and the hungry have passed the land: for
the barren hath borne seven, and she that had many children is en-

134 St Augustine.

feebled. The Lord killeth, and quickeneth : bringeth down to the grave,
and raiseth up. The Lord impoverisheth and enricheth: humbleth and
exalteth, He raiseth the poor out of the dust, and lifteth the beggar
from the dunghill to set them amongst princes, and make them inherit
the seat of glory. He giveth vows, unto those that vow unto Him, and
_blesseth the years of the just: for in his own might shall no man
be strong: the Lord, the holy Lord shall weaken His adversaries,
let not the wise boast of his wisdom, nor the rich in his riches, nor the
mighty in his might, but let their glory be to know the Lord, and to
execute His judgment and justice upon the earth: the Lord from
heaven hath thundered: He shall judge the ends of the world, and
shall give the power unto our kings, and shall exalt the horn of His
anointed.” Are these the words of a woman giving thanks for her son?
Are men’s minds so benighted, that they cannot discern a greater spirit
herein than merely human? And if anyone be moved at the events that
now began to fall out in this earthly process, does he not discern, and
acknowledge the very true religion and City of God whose King and
Founder is Jesus Christ, in the words of His Hannah, who is fitly inter-
preted, “His grace”? and that it was the spirit of grace (from which
the proud decline, and fall, and to which the humble cleave and are
advanced as this hymn says) which spake those prophetical words? If
any one will say that the woman did not prophesy, but only commended
and extolled God’s goodness for giving her prayers a son, why then what
is the meaning of this: “The bow of the mighty hath He broken, and
girded the weak with strength: they that were full are hired forth for
hunger, and the hungry have passed over the land ? for the barren hath
borne seven, and she that had many children, is enfeebled” ? Had she
(being barren) borne seven? She had borne but one when she said thus,
nor had she seven afterward, or six either (for Samuel to make up
seven), but only three sons and two daughters. Again, there being no
king in Israel at that time, to what end did she conclude thus: “ He
shall give the power unto our kings, and exalt the horn of His anointed”?
did she not prophesy in this? Let the Church of God therefore, that
fruitful Mother, that gracious City of that great King, be bold to say
that which this prophetical mother spoke in her person so long before :
“My heart rejoiceth in the Lord and my horn is exalted in the Lord.”
True joy, and as true exaltation, both being in the Lord, and not in
herself! ‘‘ My mouth is enlarged over mine enemies,” because God’s
word is not pent up in straits, nor in preachers that are taught what to
speak. “TI have rejoiced,” says she, “in Thy salvation.” That was, in
Christ Jesus, whom old Simeon (in the Gospel) had in his arms, and
knew His greatness in His infancy, saying, ‘‘ Lord, now lettest Thou Thy
servant depart in peace: for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation.” Let
the Church then say, “I have rejoiced in Thy salvation: there is none
holy, as the Lord is: no God like to our God, for He is holy, and

Of the City of God. 135

maketh holy: just Himself, and justifying others: none is holy besides
Thee, for none is holy but from Thee.” Finally it follows: “Talk no
more so exceeding proudly, let not arrogancy come out of your mouth,
for the Lord is a God of knowledge, and by Him are all enterprises
established :” none knows what He knows: for he that thinks himself
to be something, seduces himself, and is nothing at all. This now is
against the presumptuous Babylonian enemies unto God’s City, glory-
ing in themselves and not in God, as also against the carnal Israel-
ites, who (as the apostle says) being ignorant of the righteousness
of God (that is, that which He being only righteous, and justifying,
giveth man), “ and going about to establish their own righteousness, (that
is, as if they had gotten such themselves, and had none of His bestow-
ing) “submitted not themselves unto the righteousness of God: but
thinking proudly to please God by a righteousness of their own, and none
of His” (who is the God of knowledge, and the Arbiter of consciences,
and the Discerner of all man’s thoughts, which being vain, derive not
from Him). “So they fell into reprobation.” And by Him (says the
said hymn) “are all enterprises established,” and what are they but the
suppression of the proud, and the advancement of the humble: these
are God’s intents, as it follows: “The bow of the mighty hath He
broken, and girded the weak with strength their bow ;” that is, their
proud opinions that then could sanctify themselves without His
inspirations: and they are girded with strength that say in their hearts,
“‘ Have mercy on me, O Lord, for lam weak.” “ They that were full are
hired out for hunger,” that is, they are made lesser than they were, for
in their very bread, that is, the Divine words, which Israel as then
had alone from all the world, that savour nothing but the taste of earth.
But the hungry nations that had not the law, coming to those holy
words by the New Testament, they passed over the earth, and found,
because they relished an heavenly taste in those holy doctrines, and
not a savour of earth. And this follows as the reason: “ For the barren
hath brought forth seven, and she that had many children is enfeebled.”
Here is the whole prophecy opened to such as know the number of the
Jews what it is, to wit, the number of the Church’s perfection, and
therefore John the Apostle writes unto the seven Churches, implying
in that, the fulness of one only: and so it is figuratively spoken in
Solomon: ‘Wisdom hath built her an house and hewn out her seven
pillars :” for the City of God was barren in all the nations, until she
obtained that fruit whereby we now see her a fruitful mother: and the
earthly Jerusalem that had so many sons, we now behold to be weak
and enfeebled. Because all the freewoman’s sons were her virtues:
but now seeing she has the letter only without the spirit, she has lost
her virtue and is become weak. “The Lord killeth and the Lord
quickeneth,” He kills her that had so many sons; He quickens, her
womb was dead before, and has made her bring forth seven, although

136 St Augustine,

properly His quickening fell upon those whom He has killed, for
she does, as it were, repeat it, saying: “He bringeth down to the
grave, and raiseth up;” for they, unto whom the Apostle says:
“If ye be dead with Christ, seek the things that are above, where
Christ sitteth at the right hand of God:” are killed unto salvation by
the Lord, unto which purpose he adds, “‘ Set your affections upon things
above, and not on things that are on the earth. For ye are dead,’
quoth he: behold here how healthfully the Lord killeth: and then_
follows: ‘ And your life is hid with Christ in God.” Behold here how
God quickens. Aye, but does He bring them to the grave and back
again? Yes, without doubt, all we that are faithful see that fulfilled in
our Head, with whom our life is hid in God. For He that spared not
His own Son but gave Him for us all, He killed Him in this manner,
and in raising Him from death, He quickened Him again. And
because we hear Him say in the Psalm, “ Thou shalt not leave My soul
in the grave,” therefore He brought Him unto the grave and back
again. By His poverty are we enriched: for the Lord makes poor
and enriches, that is, nothing else but the Lord humbles and exalts,
humbling the proud and exalting the humble. For that same place:
“God resisteth the proud and giveth grace unto the humble,” is the
text whereupon all this prophetess’ words have dependence. Now
that which follows: “He raiseth the poor out of the dust and lifteth
the beggar from the dunghill,” is the fittest understood of Him who
became poor for us, whereas He was rich, by His poverty (as I said) to
enrich us. For He raised Him from the earth so soon that His flesh
saw no corruption: nor is this sequence, “ And lifteth the beggar from
the dunghill,” meant of any but Him, for the beggar and the poor is all
one; the dunghill whence he was lifted, is the persecuting multitude o
Jews, amongst whom the Apostle had been one, but afterwards, as he
says, “ That which was advantage unto me I held loss for Christ’s sake:
nay, not only loss, but I judge them all dung, that I might win Christ,”
Thus, then, was this poor man raised above all the rich men of the
earth, and this beggar was lifted up from the dunghill to sit with
the princes of the people, to whom He says, “ Ye shall sit on twelve
thrones,” &c., “and to make them inherit the seat of glory :” for those
mighty ones had said, “ Behold we have left all, and followed Thee:”
this vow had those mighties vowed. But whence had they this vow but
from Him that gives vows unto those that vow? otherwise, they should
be of those mighties whose bow He has broken. That gives vows
(says she) unto them that vow. For none can vow any set thing unto
God but he must have it from God: it follows, “and blesses the years
of the just,” that is, that they shall be with Him eternally, unto whom
it is written, “Thy years shall never fail: for that they are fixed:” but
here they either pass or perish: for they are gone ere they come,
bringing still their end with them. But of these two, He gives vows to

se

Of the City of God. 137

those that vow “and blesses the years of the just:” the one we perform,
and the other we receive ; but this, always by God’s giving we receive,
- nor can we do the other without God’s help, because in his own might
shall no man be strong. The Lord shall weaken His adversaries,
namely, such as resist and envy His servants in fulfilling their vows.
The Greek may also signify His own adversaries: for he that is our
adversary when we are God’s children is His adversary also, and is
overcome by us, but not by our strength: for in his own might shall no
man be strong. The Lord, the holy Lord, shall weaken His adversaries,
and make them be conquered by those whom He, the most Holy, has
made holy also, and therefore let not the wise glory in his wisdom, the
mighty in his might, nor the rich in his riches, but let their glory be to
know God, and to execute His judgments and justice upon earth. He
is a good proficient in the knowledge of God, that knows that God must
give him the means to know God. “For what hast thou,” says the
Apostle, “‘ which thou hast not received ?” that is, what hast thou of thine
own to boast of? Now he that does right executes judgment and justice :
and he that lives in God’s obedience and the “end of the command-
ment is charity out of a pure heart, and a good conscience and faith un-
feigned.” But this charity (as the Apostle John says) “is of God.” Then,
to do judgment and justice, is of God, but what is on the earth ; might
it not have been left out, and it have only been said, “ to do judgment
and justice”? The precept would be more common both to men of
land and sea: but lest any should think that after this life there were
a time elsewhere to do justice and judgment in, and so to avoid the
great Judgment for not doing them in the flesh, therefore, in the earth
is added, to confine those acts within this life: for each man bears
his earth about with him in this world, and when he dies, bequeaths
it to the great earth, that must return him it at the Resurrection. In
this earth, therefore, in this fleshly body must we do justice and
judgment to do ourselves good hereafter when everyone shall receive
according to his works done in the body, good or bad: in the body,
that is, in the time that the body lived: for if a man blaspheme
in heart though he do no hurt with any bodily member, yet shall
not he be unguilty, because though he did it not in his body,
yet he did it in the time wherein he was in the body. And
so may we understand that of the Psalm, “The Lord, our King,
hath wrought salvation in the midst of the earth before the beginning
of the world:” that is, the Lord Jesus our God before the beginning
(for He made the beginning) has wrought salvation in the midst of the
earth, namely, then, when the Word became flesh, and dwelt corporally
amongst us. But to proceed. Hannah having shewn how each man ought
to glory, viz., not in himself but in God, for the reward that follows
the great judgment, proceeds thus: “The Lord went up into heaven,
and hath thundered: He shall judge the ends of the worlds, and shall

138 St Augustine.

give the power unto our kings, and exalt the horn of His anointed.”
This is the plain faith of a Christian. ‘ He ascended into heaven, and
thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead,” for who is
ascended, saith the Apostle, ‘‘ but He who first descended into the
lower parts of the earth?” He thundered in the clouds, which He
filled with His Holy Spirit in His ascension, from which clouds He
threatened Jerusalem, that ungrateful vine, to send no rain upon it.
Now it is said, “ He shall judge the ends of the world,” that is, the ends
of men: for He shall judge no real part of the earth, but only all the
men thereof, nor judges He them that are changed into good or bad,
in the meantime, but as every man ends, so shall he be judged:
whereupon the Scripture says “ He that endureth unto the end shall be
saved,” he therefore that does justice in the midst of the earth shall not
be condemned, when the ends of the earth are judged. ‘“ And shall
give power unto our kings,” that is, in not condemning them by judg-
ment, He gives them power because they rule over the flesh like kings,
and conquer the world in Him who shed His blood for them. “ And
shall exalt the horn of His anointed.” How shall Christ the anointed
exalt the horn of His anointed? It is of Christ that those sayings,
“The Lord went up to heaven,” &c., are all meant, and so is this same
last, of exalting the horn of His anointed. ‘“‘ Christ therefore shall exalt
the horn of His anointed,” that is, of every faithful servant of His, as
she said at first: “ My horn is exalted in the Lord,” for all that have
received the unction of His grace, may well be called His anointed, all
which, with their Head, make but one Anointed. This Hannah pro-
phesied, holy Samuel’s mother, in whom the change of ancient priest-
hood was figured and now fulfilled, when the woman with many sons was
enfeebled, that the barren which brought forth seven, might receive the
new priesthood in Christ.

CHAPTER V.

The prophet’s words unto Eli the priest, signifying the taking
away of Aaron’s priesthood.

Bur this was more plainly spoken unto Eli the priest by a man of
God, whose name we read not, but his ministry proved him a prophet.
Thus it is written: “There came a man of God unto Eli, and said
unto him: Thus saith the Lord, did not I plainly appear unto the house
of thy father when they were in Egypt in Pharaoh’s house, and I chose
him out of all the tribes of Israel to be My priest, to offer at Mine altar,
to burn incense, and to wear an ephod, and I gave thy father’s house all
the burnt-offerings of the house of Israel, for to eat. Why then have
you looked in scorn upon My sacrifices, and offerings, and honoured
thy children above me, to bless the first of all the offerings of Israel in
My sight? wherefore thus saith the Lord God of Israel: I said thy

Of the City of God. 139

house and thy father’s house should walk before Me for ever: but
now the Lord saith: for them that honour Me, will I honour, and
them that despise Me, will I despise. Behold the days come that I will
cast out thy seed, and thy father’s seed, that there shall not be an old
man in thine house. I will destroy every one of thine from Mine altar, ©
that thine eyes may fail and thine heart faint, and all the remainder of
thy house shall fall by the sword, and this shall be a sign unto thee, that
shall befall thy two sons, Hophni and Phineas, in one day shall they both
die. And I will take myself up a faithful priest that shall do according
to mine heart: I will build him a sure house, and he shall walk before
my Christ for ever. And the remains of thy house shall come and bow
down to him for an halfpenny of silver, saying, Put me, I pray thee,
in some office about the priesthood, that I may eat a morsel of bread.”
We cannot say that this prophecy, plainly denouncing the change of
their old priesthood, was fulfilled in Samuel, for though Samuel were of
that tribe that served the altar, yet was he not of the sons of Aaron, to
whose offspring God tied the priesthood: (and therefore in this, was
that change shadowed that Christ was to perform, and belonged to the
Old Testament, properly, but figuratively, unto the New: being now
fulfilled both in the event of the prophecy, and the history, that
records these words of the prophet unto Eli). For afterwards there
were priests of Aaron’s race, as Abiathar and Zadok in David's reign,
and many more, for the time came wherein the change was to be effected
by Christ. But who sees not now (if he observe it with the eye of
faith) that all is fulfilled, the Jews have no tabernacle, no temple, no
altar, nor any priest of Aaron’s pedigree, as God commanded them to
have? Just as this prophet said: “Thou and thy father’s house shall
walk before me for ever.” Nay not so now; “ for them that honour Me,
will I honour,” &c. ‘‘By his father’s house” he means not Eli’s last
fathers, but Aaron’s, from whom they all descended, as these words : “Did
I not appear to thy father’s house in Egypt,” &c., do plainly prove. Who
was his father in the Egyptian bondage, and was chosen priest after their
freedom, but Aaron? Of his stock then it was here said there should be
no more priests, as we see now come to pass. Let faith be but vigilant,
and it shall discern and apprehend the truth, even whether it will or no.
“ Behold,” says he, “ the days do come, that I will cast out thy seed,” &c.
It is true: the days are come. Aaron’s seed has now no priest: and
his whole offspring behold the sacrifice of the Christians gloriously
offered all the world through, with failing eyes and fainting hearts. But
that which follows: “ All the remainder of thine house shall fall by the
sword,” &c., belongs properly to the house or Eli. And the death of
his sons was a sign of the change of the priesthood of Aaron’s house:
and signified the death of the priesthood, rather than the men. But
the next place to the priest that Samuel, Eli’s successor, prefigured, I
mean Christ, the priest of the New Testament. “TI will take Me upa

140 St Augustine.

faithful priest, that shall do all according to Mine heart: I will build him
a sure house,” &c. (This house is the heavenly Jerusalem.) “And he
shall walk before mine anointed for ever:” that is, he shall converse
with them, as He said before of the house of Aaron, ‘‘I said, thou and
thine house shall walk before Me for ever. Behold Mine anointed,”
that is mine anointed flesh, not mine anointed priest, for that is Christ
Himself, the Saviour. So that his house and stock it is that shall walk
before Him, it may be meant also of the passage of the faithful from death
unto life at the end of their mortality, and the last judgment. But
whereas it is said: “ He shall do all according to Mine heart,” we may
not think that God has any heart, being the heart’s maker, but it is
figuratively spoken of Him, as the Scripture does of other members,
“The hand of the Lord,” “the finger of God,” &c. And lest we should
think that in this respect man bears the image of God, the Scripture
gives him wings, which man does want: “ Hide me under the shadow of
thy wings :” to teach men indeed, that those things are spoken with no
true, but a tropical reference unto that ineffable essence. Let us proceed.
“And the remains of thine house shall come and bow down unto him,”
&c. This is not meant of the house of Eli, but of Aaron’s, of which
some were remaining until the coming of Christ, yea, and are unto this
day. For that above, “The remainder of thy house shall fall by the
sword,” was meant by Eli’s lineage. How then can both these places
be true, that some should come to bow down, and yet the sword should
devour all, unless they be meant of two, the first of Aaron’s lineage, and
the second of Eli’s? If then they be of those predestinate remainders
whereof the prophet says: “The remnant shall be saved:” and the
apostle, “ At this present time is there a remnant through the election
of grace :” which may well be understood of that remnant that the man
of God speaks of here, then doubtless they believed in Christ, as many
of their nation (Jews) did in the apostle’s time, and some (though very
few) do now, fulfilling that of the prophet, which follows: “And bow
down to him, for an halfpenny of silver:” to whom but unto the great
Priest, who is God eternal? for in the time of Aaron’s priesthood the
people came not to the temple to adore or bow down to the priest.
But what is that, “ For an halfpenny of silver ”? Only the brevity of
the word of faith, as the apostle says, “The Lord will make a short
account in the earth,” that silver is put for the word, the psalmist proves,
saying, “ The words of the Lord are pure words, as silver, tried in the
fire:” what are his words now, that bows to this God’s priest, this
Priest who is God: “ Place me in some office about the priesthood, that I
may eat a morsel of bread? I will not have my father’s honours, they
are nothing, but place me anywhere in the priesthood. I would fain be
a doorkeeper, or anything in thy service and amongst thy people,” for
priesthood is put here for the people, to whom Christ the Mediator is
the High Priest: which people the apostle called an holy nation and a

Of the City of God. 141

royal priesthood. Some read “sacrifice” in the former place for priest-
hood : all is one, both signify the Christian flock. Whereof St Paul says:
“We are one bread, being many, and one body;” and again, “ Give
up your bodies a living sacrifice.” So then the addition, “That I may
eat a morsel of bread,” is a direct expression of the sacrifice, whereof
the Priest Himself says, “The bread which I will give is My flesh,” &c.
This is the sacrifice not after the order of Aaron, but of Melchizedek :
he that reads let him understand. So then these words, “ Place me in
some office about thy priesthood that I may eat a morsel of bread,”
are a direct and succinct confession of the faith: this is the halfpenny
of silver, because it is brief, and it is God’s word, that dwells in the
house of the believer : for having said before that He had given Aaron’s
house meat of the offering of the house of Israel which were the sacrifices
of the Jews in the Old Testament, therefore, adds he, “ The eating
of bread” in this conclusion, which is the sacrifice of the New
Testament.

CHAPTER VI.

The promise of the priesthood of the Jews, and their kingdom, to stand
eternally, not fulfilled in that sort that other promises of that unbounded
nature are.

ALTHOUGH these things were then as deeply prophesied, as they now
are plainly fulfilled, yet some may put this doubt : How shall we expect
all the event therein presaged, when this that the Lord said, ‘‘ Thine
house, and thy father’s house, shall walk before Me for ever,” can be
no way now effected, the priesthood being now quite abolished, nor
any way expected, because that eternity is promised to the priesthood
that succeeded? He that objects this, conceives not that Aaron’s
priesthood was but a type and shadow of the other’s future priesthood,
and therefore that the eternity promised to the shadow, was due but
unto the substance only: and that the change was prophesied to avoid
this supposition of the shadow’s eternity, for so the kingdom of Saul,
the reprobate, was a shadow of the kingdom of eternity to come, the oil
wherewith he was anointed, was a great and reverend mystery: which
David so honoured, that when he was hid in the dark cave into which
Saul came to ease himself of the burden of nature, he was afraid, and
only cut off a piece of his skirt, to have a token whereby to shew him
how causelessly he suspected him, and persecuted him: he feared, I say
for doing this much: lest he had wronged the mystery of Saul’s being
anointed: ‘ He was touched in heart,” says the Scripture, “ for cutting
off the skirt of his raiment.” His men that were with him persuaded him
to take his time, Saul was now in his hands, strike sure. ‘The Lord
keep me,” says he, “ from doing so unto my Master the Lord’s anointed:
to lay mine hands on him, for he is the anointed of the Lord.” Thus
honoured he this figure, not for itself, but for the thing it shadowed.

142 St Augustine.

And therefore these words of Samuel unto Saul: ‘“ The Lord had pre-
pared thee a kingdom for ever in Israel, but now it shall not remain
unto thee, because thou hast not obeyed His voice: therefore will He
seek Him a man according to His heart,” &c., are not to be taken as if
Saul himself should have reigned for evermore, and then that his sin
made God break His promise afterwards (for He knew that he would
sin, when He did prepare him this kingdom), but this He prepared for
a figure of that kingdom that shall remain for evermore: and therefore
He adds, “It shall not remain unto thee:” it remains and ever shall,
in the signification, but not unto him, for neither he nor his progeny
were to reign there, everlastingly.

“The Lord will seek him a man,” says He, meaning either David, or
the Mediator, prefigured in the unction of David and his posterity. He
does not say, “ He will seek,” as if He knew not where to find, but He
speaks as one that seeks our understanding, for we were all known both
to God the Father, and His Son, the seeker of the lost sheep, and
elected in Him also, before the beginning of the world. “He will
seek,” that is, He will shew the world that which He Himself knows
already. And so have we acguzro in the Latin, with a preposition, ‘to
attain :’ and may use guero, in that sense also: as gu@stus, the substan-
tive, for ‘gains.’

CHAPTER VII.

The Kingdom of Israel, vent: prefiguring the perpetual division between
the spiritual and carnal Israel,

Saut fell again by disobedience, and Samuel told him again from God,
“ Thou hast cast off the Lord and the Lord has cast off thee, that thou
shalt be no more king over Israel.” Now Saul, confessing this sin, and
praying for pardon, and that Samuel would go with him to entreat the
Lord. “Not I,” says Samuel, ‘thou hast cast off the Lord,” &c. And
Samuel turned himself to depart, and Saul held him by the lap of
his coat, and it rent. Then quoth Samuel, ‘‘The Lord hath rent the
kingdom of Israel from thee this day, and hath given it unto thy neigh-
bour which is better than thee: and Israel shall be parted into two, and
- shall no more be united, and He is not a man that He should repent,” &c.
Now he unto whom these words were said, ruled Israel forty years, even
as long as David, and yet was told this in the beginning of his kingdom ;
to shew us that none of his race should reign after him, and to turn our
eyes upon the line of David, whence Christ our Mediator took His
humanity. Now the original does not read in this place as the Latin
copies do: “The Lord shall rend the Kingdom of Israel from thee
this day,” but, ‘the Lord hath rent the kingdom from Israel out of
thine hand,” from thee, that is, from Israel, so that this man was a
type of Israel, that was to lose the kingdom as soon as Christ came
with the New Testament, to rule spiritually, not carnally. Of whom

Of the City of God. 143

these words, “and hath given it unto thy neighbour,” shews the con-
sanguinity with Israel in the flesh, and so with Saul: and that following,
“who is better than thee,” implies not any good in Saul, or Israel, but that
which the Psalmist says: “Until I make thine enemies thy footstool,”
whereof Israel the persecutor (whence Christ rent the kingdom) was
one. Although there were Israel the wheat amongst Israel the chaff
also: for the apostles were thence, and Stephen, with many martyrs be-
sides, and from their seed grew up so many Churches as Saint Paul
reckons, all glorifying God in his conversion. And that which follows,
“Israel shall be parted into two,” concerning this point assuredly,
namely, into Israel, Christ’s friend, and Israel, Christ’s foe: into Israel
the freewoman and Israel the slave. For these two were first united,
Abraham accompanying with his maid until his wife’s barrenness being
fruitful, she cried out, ‘Cast out the bondwoman and her son.” In-
deed because of Solomon’s sin, we know that in his son Rehoboam’s time
Israel divided itself into two parts, and either had a king, until the
Chaldeans came and subdued and overthrew all. But what was this unto
Saul? Such an event was rather to be threatened unto David, Solomon’s
father. And now in these times, the Hebrews are not divided, but dis-
persed all over the world, continuing on still in their error. But that
division that God threatened unto Saul, who was a figure of this people,
was a foreshadowing of the eternal irrevocable separation, because pre-
sently it follows: ‘‘And shall no more be united, and He will not be
changed, neither will He repent: for He is not as a man that He should
repent; who threatens and does not persist.” But what God once resolves
is irremovable. For where we read that “ God repented,” it portends an
alteration of things out of His eternal prescience. And likewise where
“He did not,” it portends a fixing of things as they are. So here we
see the division of Israel, perpetual and irrevocable, grounded upon this
prophecy. For they that come from thence to Christ, or contrary, were
to do so by God’s providence, though human conceit cannot apprehend
it : and their separation is in the spirit also, not in the flesh. And those
Israelites that shall stand in Christ unto the end, shall never partake
with those that stayed with His enemies unto the end, “ but be,” as it
is here said, “eternally separate.” For the Old Testament of Sinai,
begetting in bondage, shall do them no good, nor any other, further
than confirms the New. Otherwise, as long as Moses is read, the veil
is drawn over their hearts: and when they come to Christ, then is it
removed. For the thoughts of those that pass from them to Him, are
changed, and bettered in their pass: and thence, their felicity they seek
is spiritual, no more carnal. Wherefore the great prophet Samuel before
he had anointed Saul, when he cried to the Lord for Israel, and He
heard him: and when he offered the burnt-offering (the Philistines
coming against Israel, and the Lord thundered upon them and scattered
them, so that they fell before Israel), took a stone, and placed it be-

144 St Augustine.

tween the two Mizpehs, the Old and the New, and named the place
Ebenezer, that is, “the stone of help:” saying, “ Hitherto the Lord
hath helped us:” that stone, is the mediation of our Saviour, by which
we come from the Old Mispeh to the New, from the thought of a
carnal kingdom in all felicity, unto the expectation of a crown of
spiritual glory (as the New Testament teaches us), and seeing that that
is the sum and scope of all, “ even hitherto hath God helped us.”

CHAPTER VIII.

Promises made unto David, concerning his son: not fulfilled in
Solomon: butin Christ.

Now must I relate God’s promises unto David, Saul’s successor (which
change prefigured the spiritual and great one, which all the Scriptures
have relation unto), because it concerns our purpose. David having
had continual good fortune, intended to build God a house, namely
that famous and memorable temple that Solomon built after him.
While this was in his thought, Nathan came to him from God, to tell
him what was His pleasure: wherein, when God had said, “‘ That David
should not build Him an house, and that He had not commanded
Israel in all this time to build Him any house of cedar:” then He pro-
ceeds thus: “Tell My servant David, that thus saith the Lord: I took
thee from the sheepcote, to make thee a ruler over My people Israel:
and I was with thee wheresoever thou walked, and have destroyed all
thine enemies out of thy sight, and given thee the glory of a mighty man
upon earth. I will appoint a place for My people Israel, and will plant
it, it shall dwell by itself, and move no more, nor shall wicked people
trouble them any more, as they have done, since I appointed Judges
over Israel. And I will give thee rest from all thine enemies, and the
Lord telleth thee also that thou shalt make Him an house. It shall be
when thy days be fulfilled, and thou sleepest with thy fathers, then will I
set up thy seed after thee, even he that shall proceed from thy body,
and will prepare his kingdom. He shall build an house for My name,
and I will direct his throne forever. I will be his father, and he shall
be My son: if he sin I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with
the plagues of the children of men. But My mercy will I not remove
from him, as I removed it from Saul, whom I have rejected. His house
shall be faithful, and his kingdom eternal before Me: his throne shall
be established for ever.” He that holds this mighty promise fulfilled in
Solomon, is far wide. For mark how it lies, ‘‘ He shall build Me an
house,” Solomon did so: and this he marks: but, “ His house shall be
faithful, and his kingdom eternal before Me:” what is this? this he
marks not. Well, let him go to Solomon’s house, and see the flocks of
strange idolatrous women, drawing this so wise a king into the same
depth of condemnation with them: does he see it? then let him neither

Of the City of God. 148

think God’s promises false, nor His prescience ignorant of Solomon’s
future perversion by idolatry. We need never doubt here, nor vainly
tun with the harebrained Jews to seek for some other here in whom
these may be fulfilled ; we should never have seen them fulfilled but
in our Christ, the son of David in the flesh. For they know well
enough ; that this son of whom these promises spoke, was not Solomon:
but (oh wondrous blindness of heart !) stand still expecting another to
come, who is already come, in most broad and manifest appearance.
There was some shadow of the thing to come in Solomon, it is true, in
his erection of the temple, and that laudable peace which he had in the
beginning of his reign, and in his name (for Solomon is, ‘a peacemaker’),
but he was only in his person a shadow, but no presentation of Christ
our Saviour, and therefore some things are written of him that concern
our Saviour: the Scripture including the prophecy of the one, in the
history of the other. For besides the books of the Kings and Chron-
icles they speak of his reign, the seventy-second Psalm is entitled with
his name. Wherein there are so many things impossible to be true in
him, and most apparent in Christ, that it is evident that he was but the
figure, not the truth itself. The bounds of Solomon’s kingdom were
known, yet (to omit the rest) that Psalm says; “ He shall reign from sea
to sea, and from the river to the land’s end.” This is most true of
Christ. For He began His reign at the river, when John baptised and
declared Him, and His disciples acknowledged Him, calling Him Lord
and Master. Nor did Solomon begin his reign in his father’s time (as
no other of their kings did) but only to shew that he was not the aim —
of the prophecy, that said, ‘‘ It shall be when thy days are fulfilled, and
that thou sleepest with thy fathers, then will I set up thy seed after thee,
and prepare His kingdom.” Why then shall we lay all this upon Solo-
mon, because it is said, ‘He shall build Me an house ;” and not the
rather understand, that it is the other Peacemaker that is spoken of,
who is not promised to be set up before David’s death (as Solomon
was) but after, according to the precedent text? And though Christ
were never so long ere He came, yet coming after David’s death, all
is one: He came at length as He was promised, and built God the
Father a house, not of timber and stones, but of living souls, wherein
we all rejoice. For to this house of God, that is, His faithful people,
St Paul says, “‘ The temple of God is holy, which temple are ye.”

CHAPTER IX,

A prophecy of Christ in the eighty-ninth Psalm, like unto this of Ethan
in the Book of Kings.

Tue eighty-ninth Psalm also, entitled, “An instruction for himself by

Ethan the Israelite,” reckons up the promises of God unto David, and

there is some like those of Ethan, as this, “I have sworn to David My
K

146 : St Augustine.

servant, thy seed will I establish for ever: ” and this, “Then spakest Thou
in a vision unto Thy sons, and said, I have laid help upon the Mighty
One: I have exalted one chosen out of My people. I have found David
My servant, with My holy oil have I anointed him. For Mine hand
shall help him, and Mine arm shall strengthen him. The enemy shall
not oppress him, nor shall the wicked hurt him. But I will destroy his
foes before his face, and plague them that hate him. My truth and
mercy shall be with him, and in My name shall his horn be exalted. I
will set his dominion in the sea, and his right hand in the floods, he shall
call upon Me, Thou art my Father, my God, and the rock of my salva-
tion. I will make him My first-born, higher than the kings of the earth:
My mercy will I keep unto him forever, and My covenant shall stand
fast with him. His seed shall endure for ever, and his throne as the
days of heaven.” All this is meant of Christ under the type of David,
because that from a virgin of his seed Christ took man upon Him: then
follows it of David’s sons, as it does in Ethan’s words, meant properly
of Solomon ; He said there, “If they sin, I will chasten them with the
rods of men, and with the plagues of the sons of men :” (that is, corrective
afflictions), “ but My mercy will I not utterly remove from him.” Where-
upon it is said, “Touch not Mine anointed, hurt them not :” and now
here in this Psalm (speaking of the mystical David) he says the like,
“ But if his children forsake My law, and walk not in My righteousness,
&c., their transgression will I visit with rods and their sins with scourges :
yet My mercy will I not take from him.” He says not “from them,”
though He speak of His sons, but “from him,” which being well marked,
is as much: for there could no sins be found in Christ, the Church’s
Head, worthy to be corrected of God: with, or without reservation of
mercy, but in His members, that is, His people: wherefore in the Kings
it is called His son, and in this Psalm, His children, that we might see
that all things spoken of His body, has some reference unto Himself ; and
in that when Saul persecuted His members, His faithful, He said from

heaven, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?” it follows in the said
Psalm, “ My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing I have spoken,
I have sworn only by My holiness : that if I fail David,” that is, ‘I will
not fail David: ” it is the Scriptures’ usual phrase, that He will not fail
in, He adds, saying, “His seed shall remain for ever, and his throne
shall be as the sun before Me: perfect as the moon, and as a faithfnl
witness in heaven.”

CHAPTER X.

Of divers actions done in the earthly Jerusalem, and the kingdom, differ-
ing from God’s promises, to shew that the truth of His words con-
cerned the glory of another kingdom, and another king.

Now after the confirmation of all these promises, lest it should be
thought that they were to be fulfilled in Solomon (as they were not) the

Of the City of God. 147

Psalm adds, “Thou hast cast him off, and brought him to nothing.”
So did He indeed with Solomon’s kingdom in his posterity, even unto
the destruction of the earthly Jerusalem, the seat of that royalty, and
unto the burning of that temple that Solomon built. But yet lest God
should be thought to fail in His promise, he adds: ‘‘ Thou hast delayed
Thine anointed:” this was not Solomon, nor David, if the Lord’s
anointed were delayed, for though all the kings that were consecrated
with that mystical chrism, were called anointed, from Saul their first
king (for so David calls him): yet was there but one True Anointed
whom all these did prefigure, who (as they thought that looked for him
David, or Solomon) was long delayed, but yet was prepared to come in
in the time that God had appointed. What became of the earthly
Jerusalem in the meantime where He was expected to reign, the Psalmist
shews, saying: ‘Thou hast overthrown Thy servant’s covenant, pro-
faned his crown, and cast it on the ground. Thou hast pulled down
his walls, and laid his fortresses in ruin. All passengers do spoil him, he
is the scorn of his neighbours: Thou hast set up the right hand of his
foes, and made his enemies glad. Thou hast turned the edge of his
sword, and given him no help in battle. Thou hast dispersed his
dignity, and cast his throne to the ground. Thou hast shortened the
days of his reign, and covered him with shame.” All this befell Jeru-
salem the bondwoman, wherein nevertheless some sons of the free-
woman reigned in the time appointed: hoping for the heavenly Jeru-
salem in a true faith, being the true sons thereof in Christ. But how
those things befell that kingdom, the history shews unto those that will
read it.

CHAPTER XI.

The substance of the people of God who were in Christ in the flesh: who
only had power to redeem the soul of man from hell.

Arter this, the prophet begins to pray: yet is this prayer a prophecy
also: ‘‘ Lord, how long wilt Thou turn away ? (Thy face) for ever?” as
is said elsewhere: “ How long wilt Thou turn thy face from me:”
some books read it in the passive, but it may be understood of God’s
mercy also, in the active: for ever, that is, unto the end; which end,
is the last times, when that nation shall believe in Christ, before which
time it is to suffer all those mysteries that he bewails, Wherefore it
follows: “ Shall Thy wrath burn like fire? O remember of what I am;
my substance.” Here is nothing fitter to be understood, than Jesus, the
substance of this people, for hence He had His flesh.

Didst Thou create the children of men in vain? Unless there were
one son of man, of the substance of Israel, by whom a multitude should
be saved, they were all created in vain indeed: for now all the seed of
man is fallen by the first man from truth to vanity: “ Man is like to

148 St Augustine.

vanity (says the Psalm) his days vanish like a shadow.” Yet did not
God create all men in vain, for He frees many from vanity by Christ
the Mediator His Son; and such as He knows will not be freed, He
makes use of, to the good of the free, and the greater eminence of the
two cities: thus is there good reason for the creation of all reasonable
creatures.

It follows, ‘‘ What man liveth that shall not see death? or shall free
his soul from the hand of hell?” Why none but Christ Jesus the sub-
stance of Israel, and the son of David: of whom the apostle says:
“Who being raised from death, dieth no more: death hath no more
dominion over Him.” For He lives and shall not see death, “but
freed His soul from the hand of hell,” because He descended into the
lower parts to loose some from the bonds of sin: by that power that
the Evangelist records of His: ‘‘I have power to lay down My life
and I have power to take it up again.”

CHAPTER XII.
Another verse of the former Psalm, and the persons to whom it belongs.

Tue rest of this Psalm, in these words: “ Lord, where are Thy old
loving-kindnesses which Thou swarest unt.‘ David in Thy truth? Lord,
remember the rebuke of Thy servants (by many nations that have scorned
them), because they have reproached the footsteps of Thine Anointed :”
whether it have reference to the Israelites that expected this promise
made unto David, or to the spiritual Israelites the Christians, is a
question worth deciding. This was written or spoken in the time of
Ethan, whose name the title of the Psalm bears: which was also in
David’s reign, so that these words: ‘“ Lord, where are Thine old mercies
which Thou swarest unto David in Thy truth,” could not then be
spoken, but that the prophet bare a type of somewhat long after to
ensue, to wit, at such time as the time of David wherein those mercies
were promised might seem ancient. It may further be understood,
because that many nations, that persecuted the Christians, cast them in
the teeth with the passion of Christ, which He calls his change, to wit,
being made immortal by death.

Christ’s change also in this respect may be a reproach unto the
Israelites, because they expected Him, and the nations only received
Him, and this the believers of the New Testament reproach them for,
who continue in the Old: so that the prophet may say, “ Lord, re-
member the reproach of Thy servants,” because hereafter (God not
forgetting to pity them) they shall believe also. But I like the former
meaning better: for the words, “ Lord, remember the reproach of Thy
servants,” &c., cannot be said of the enemies of Christ, to whom it is a
reproach, that Christ left them and came to the nations (such Jews are
no servants of God): but of them only, who having endured great per-

Of the City of God. 149

secutions for the name of Christ, can remember that high kingdom
promised unto David’s seed, and say in desire thereof, knocking, seek-
Ing, and asking, “ Where are Thine old loving-kindnesses, Lord, which
Thou swaredst unto Thy servant David? Lord, remember,” &c.,
because Thine enemies have held Thy change a destruction, and
upbraided it in Thine anointed.

And what is, “ Lord, remember,” but Lord have mercy, and for my
patience, give me that height which Thou swarest unto David in Thy
truth? If we make the Jews speak this, it must be those servants of
God, that suffered the captivity in Babylon, before Christ’s coming, and
knew what the change of Christ was, and that thére was no earthly nor
transitory felicity to be expected by it, such as Solomon had for a few
years, but that eternal and spiritual kingdom, which the infidel nations
not apprehending as then, exulted over and insulted the people of God
for being captives, but unknowingly, and unto those that knew it. And
therefore that last verse of the Psalm, “‘ Blessed be the Lord for ever-
more, amen, amen :” agrees fitly enough with the people of the celestial
Jerusalem: place them as you please, hidden in the Old Testament,
before the revelation of the New, or manifested in the New, when it was
fully revealed. For God’s blessing upon the seed of David, is not
to be expected only for a while, as Solomon had it, but for ever, and
therefore follows, “Amen, amen.” The hope confirmed, the word is
doubled.

This David understanding in the second of the Kings (whence we
digressed in this Psalm) says: “Thou hast spoken of Thy servant’s
house for a great while to come.” And then a little after: ‘‘ Now there-
fore begin and bless the house of Thy servant for ever,” &c., because
then he was to beget a son, by whom his posterity should descend unto
Christ, in whom his house and the house of God should be one, and
that eternal. It is David’s house, because of David’s seed, and the
same is God’s house, because of His temple, built of souls and not of
stones, wherein God’s people may dwell for ever, in, and with Him, and
He for ever in, and with them, He filling them, and they being full of
Him : God being all in all, their reward in peace and their fortitude in
war. And, whereas, Ethan had said before, ‘“‘ Thus saith the Lord,
shalt thou build me an house?” now David says upon that, “Thou, O
Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, hast revealed unto Thy servant saying,
I will build thee an house.” This house do we build, by living well,
and the Lord by giving us power to live well, for, “except the Lord
build the house, their labour is but lost that build it.” And at the last
dedication of this house, shall the word of the Lord be fulfilled, that
Ethan spoke saying, “I will appoint a place for My people Israel, and
will plant him, and he shall dwell by himself, and be no more moved,
nor shall the son of iniquity trouble him any more, as from the begin-
ning when I appointed judges over My people Israel.”

150 St Augustine.

CHAPTER XIII.

Whether the truth of the promised peace may be ascribed unto Solomon's
time.

HE that looks for this great good in this world, is far wrong. Can any
one bind the fulfilling of it unto Solomon’s time? No, no, the Scrip-
tures commend it excellently, as the figure of a future good. But this
one place, “the son of iniquity shall not trouble him any more,” dissolves
this suspicion fully: adding this further, “as from the beginning when
I appointed judges over My people Israel,” for the judges began to rule
Israel before the kings, as soon as ever they had attained the land of
promise: and the wicked, that is, the enemy, troubled them sore, and
divers was the chance of war, yet had they longer peace in those times
than ever they had in Solomon’s, who reigned but forty years, for under
judge Ehud, they had eighty years’ peace. Solomon’s time, therefore,
cannot be held the fulfilling of those promises: and much less any king’s
besides his, for no king had that peace that he had: nor any nation ever
had kingdom wholly acquit from fear of foe, because the mutability ot
human estate can never grant any realm an absolute security from all
incursions of hostility. The place, therefore, where this promised peace
will dwell and abide, is eternal: it is that heavenly Jerusalem, that free-
woman where the true Israel shall have their blessed abode: as the name
imports; Jerusalem, that is, ‘beholding God:’ the desire of which
reward must bear us out in godliness, through all this sorrowful
pilgrimage.

CHAPTER XIV.

Of David's endeavours in composing of the Psalms.

Gop’s City having this progress, David reigned first in the type thereof,
the terrestrial Jerusalem. Now David had great skill in songs, and loved
music, not out of his private pleasure, but in his zealous faith: whereby,
in the service of his (and the true) God in diversity of harmonious and
proportionate sounds, he mystically describes the concord and unity
of the celestial City of God, composed of divers particulars. All his
prophecies (almost) are in his psalms. A hundred and fifty whereof,
that which we call the Book of Psalms, or the Psalter, contains. Of
which, some will have them only to be David’s, that bear his name over
their title. Some think that only they that are entitled, each peculiarly
a psalm of David, are his: the rest, that are entitled to David, were
made by others, and fitted unto his person. But this our Saviour confutes
His own self, saying, “that David called Christ in the Spirit his Lord :”
citing the hundred and tenth Psalm that begins thus: “The Lord said
unto my Lord, sit thou on my right hand until I make thine enemies
thy footstool.” Now this Psalm is not entitled, of David, but for David,

Of the City of God. 151

as many more are. But I like their opinion best that say he made all
the hundred and fifty, entitling them sometimes with other names, and
those pertinent unto some prefiguration or other, and leaving some
others untitled at all, as God pleased to inspire these dark mysteries,
and hidden varieties (all useful howsoever) into his mind. Nor is it
anything against this that we read the psalms of some great prophets
that lived after him, upon some of his Psalms, as if they were made by
them, for the Spirit of prophecy might as well foretell him their names,
as other matter that appertained to their persons, as the reign of King
Josiah was revealed unto a prophet, who foretold of his doings, and his
very name about three hundred years before it came to pass.

CHAPTER XV.

Whether all things concerning Christ and His Church in the Psalms,
ought to be rehearsed in this work.

I sEE my reader expects now, that I should deliver all the prophecies
concerning Christ and His Church contained in the Psalms. But the
abundance thereof, rather than the want, hinders me from explaining
all the rest as I have done one, and as the cause seems to require. I
should be too tedious, in reciting all, and fear to choose any part lest
some should think I had omitted any that were more necessary. Again,
another reason is, because the testimony we brought is to be confirmed
by the whole body of the psalter, so that though all do not affirm it yet
nothing may be against it: lest we should otherwise seem to snatch
out verses for our purpose, like fragments of some cento, whose intent
concerns a theme far different. Now to shew this testimony of one
in every Psalm of the book, we must expound the Psalm: which is so
great a work as both others and our volumes wherein we have done it
expressly declare; let him that can and list, read those, and there he
shall see how abundant the prophecies of David concerning Christ, and
of His Church were, namely concerning that celestial King, and the
city which He builded.

CHAPTER XVI.

Of the fortyfifth Psalm: the tropes, and truths therein, concerning Christ
and the Church.

For although there be some manifest prophecies, yet are they mixed
with figures ; putting the learned unto a great deal of labour, in making
the ignorant understand them, yet some shew Christ and His Church at
first sight (though we must at leisure expound the difficulties that we
find therein): as for example. Ps. xlv., “ Mine heart hath given out a
good word : I dedicate my works to the King. My tongue is the pen of

152 St Augustine.

a ready writer: Thou art fairer than the children of men, grace is poured
in Thy lips, for God hath blessed Thee for ever. Gird Thy sword upon
Thy thigh, O Thou most Mighty: proceed in Thy beauty and glory: and
reign prosperously because of Thy truth, Thy justice and Thy gentle-
ness: Thy right hand shall guide Thee wondrously: Thine arrows are
sharp (most Mighty) against the hearts of the King’s enemies: the
people shall fall under Thee. Thy throne, O God, is everlasting, and
the sceptre of Thy kingdom, a sceptre of direction: Thou lovest justice,
and hatest iniquity : therefore God, even Thy God, hath anointed Thee
with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows. All Thy garments smell
of myrrh, aloes, and cassia, from the ivory palaces, wherein the King’s
daughters had made Thee glad, in their honour.” Who is so dull that
he discerns not Christ our God, in whom we believe, by this place?
hearing Him called God, whose throne is for ever, and anointed by God,
not with visible but with spiritual chrism: who is so barbarously igno-
rant in this immortal and universal religion, that he hears not that
Christ’s name comes of Chrisma, ‘unction’? Here we know Christ, let
us see then unto the types: how is He father then unto the sons of
men? in a beauty far more amiable than that of the body. What is
His sword, His shafts, &c.; all these are tropical characters of His
power: and how they are all so, let him that is the subject to this true,
just, and gentle King, inquire into at his leisure. And then behold His
Church, that spiritual spouse of His, and that Divine wedlock of theirs :
here it is: “ The Queen stood on Thy right hand, her clothing was of
gold embroidered with divers colours. Hear, O daughter, and mark,
attend, and forget thy people and thy father’s house. For the King
taketh pleasure in thy beauty : and He is the Lord thy God. The sons
of Tyre shall adore Him with gifts, the rich men of the people shall
woo Him with presents: the King’s daughter is all glorious within, her
clothing is of wrought gold. The virgins shall be brought after her unto
.the King, and her kinsfolks and companions shall follow her, with joy
and gladness shall they be brought, and shall enter into the King’s
chamber. Instead of thy fathers thou shalt have children, that thou
mayest make them princes in all lands. They shall remember Thy
name, O Lord, from generation to generation ; therefore shall their
people give thanks unto Thee, world without end.” I do not think any-
one so stupid as to think this to be meant of any personal woman.
No, no, she is His spouse to whom it is said: “Thy throne, O God, is
everlasting ; and the sceptre of Thy kingdom a sceptre of direction.
Thou hast loved justice and hated iniquity, therefore the Lord thy
God hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness before thy fellows :”
namely, Christ before the Christians. For they are His fellows of
whose concord out of all nations, comes this Queen, as another Psalm
says: “the city of the great King,” meaning the spiritual Zion: Zion
is speculatio (discovery): for so she descries the future good that it

Of the City of God. 153

is to receive, and thither directs she all her intentions. This is the
spiritual Jerusalem, whereof we have all this while spoken, this is
the foe of that devilish Babylon, high confusion, and that the foe
of this. Yet is this city, by regeneration, freed from the Babylonian
bondage, and passes over the worst king for the best that ever was,
turning from the devil and coming home to Christ: for which it is said,
“Forget thy people and thy father’s house,” &c. The Israelites were
a part of this city in the flesh, but not in that faith: but became foes
both to this great king and queen. Christ was killed by them, and
came from them, to those that He never saw in the flesh, And
therefore our King says by the mouth of the psalmist in another
place: “Thou hast delivered Me from the contentions of the
people, and made Me the head of the heathen: a people whom I
have not known hath served Me: and as soon as they heard Me obeyed
Me.” This was the Gentiles who never saw Christ in the flesh, nor
He them: yet hearing Him preached they believed so steadfastly,
that He might well say: “‘ As soon as they heard Me, they obeyed Me:”
for faith comes by hearing. This people, conjoined with the true
Israel, both in flesh and spirit, is that City of God, which when it
was only in Israel, brought forth Christ in the flesh: for thence was the
Virgin Mary, from whom Christ took our manhood upon Him. Of this
city, thus says another Psalm : “ Men shall call it our Mother Zion: He
became man therein, the Most High hath founded her :” who was this
Most High but God? So did Christ found her in His patriarchs and
prophets before He took flesh in her from the Virgin Mary. Seeing,
therefore, that the prophet so long ago said that of this city which now
we behold come to effect: ‘Instead of fathers thou shalt have children,
whom thou mayest make princes over all the earth” (for so has she when
whole nations and their rulers come freely to confess and profess Christ’s
truth for ever and ever), then without all doubt there is no trope
herein, however understood, but has direct reference unto these
manifestations,

CHAPTER XVII.

Of the references of the hundred and tenth Psalin unto Christ’s priest-
hood: and the twenty-second unto His passion.

For in that Psalm that (as this calls Christ a King) that enstyles Him a
Priest, beginning: “The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit Thou at My right
hand until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool:” we believe that
Christ sits at God’s right hand, but we see it not: nor that His enemies
are all under His feet (which must appear in the end, and is now
believed, as it shall hereafter be beheld) : but then the rest: “ The Lord
shall send the rod of Thy power out of Sion, be Thou ruler amidst
Thine enemies.” This is so plain that nought but impudence itself can

154 St Augustine.

contradict it. The enemies themselves confess that the law of Christ
came out of Sion, that which we call the Gospel, and avouch to be
the rod of His power. And that He rules in the midst of His enemies,
themselves His slaves, with grudging and fruitless gnashing of teeth,
do really acknowledge. Furthermore: “The Lord sware and will not
repent” (which proves the sequence eternally established) “Thou art
a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.” The reason is,
Aaron’s priesthood and sacrifice are abolished, and now in all the world
under Christ the Priest, we offer that which Melchizedek brought
forth when he blessed Abraham: who doubts now of whom this is
spoken? and unto this manifestation are the other tropes of the Psalm
referred, as we have declared them peculiarly in our sermons, and in
that Psalm also wherein Christ prophesies of His Passion by David’s
mouth, saying, “‘ They pierced My hands and My feet: they counted all
My bones, and stood gazing upon Me.” These words are a plain de-
scription of His posture on the Cross, His nailing of His hands and
feet, His whole body ‘stretched at length, and made a rueful gazing
stock to the beholders. Nay, more: “They parted My garments
among them, they cast lots upon My vesture. How this was fulfilled,
~ let the Gospel tell you. And so in this, there are divers obscurities,
which notwithstanding are all congruent with the main and scope of the
Psalm,manifested in the Passion, especially seeing that those things which
the Psalm presaged so long before, are but now effected (as it foretold),
and even now are opened unto the eyes of the whole world. For
it says a little after: “All the ends of the world shall remember them-
selves, and turn unto the Lord: all the kindreds of the earth shall wor-
ship before Him: for the kingdom is the Lord’s, and He shall rule
among the nations.”

CHAPTER XVIII.

. Christ's death and resurrection prophesied in the third, sixteenth, forty-
Jirst, and sixty-eighth Psalms.

NEITHER were the Psalms silent of His resurrection: for what is that of
the third Psalm: “I laid me down, and slept, and rose again, for the
Lord sustained me”? will any one say that the prophet would record it
for such a great thing, to sleep, and to rise, but that he means by
sleep, death, and by rising again, the resurrection ? things that were fit
to be prophesied of Christ ? this, in the forty-first Psalm is most plain :
for David in the person of the Mediator, discoursing (as he usually does)
of things to come as if they were already past (because they are already
past in God’s predestination and prescience), says thus : “ Mine enemies
speak evil of me, saying, when shall he die, and his name perish ? and if
he come to see, he speaketh lies, and his heart heapeth up iniquity
within him, and he goeth forth and telleth it ; mine enemies whisper
together against me, and imagine how to hurt me, They have spoken

Of the City of God. 155

an unjust thing upon me, shall not He that sleepeth, arise again ?” this is
even as much as if he had said, “shall not He that is dead revive again ?”
the previous words shew how they conspired His death, and how he
that came in to see Him, went out to betray him to them. And why is
not this that traitor Judas, His disciple? Now because He knew they
would effect their wicked purpose, to kill Him, He, to shew the fond-
ness of their malice in murdering Him that should rise again, says these
words : “Shall not He that sleepeth, arise again?” as if he had said,
“© fools, your wickedness procureth but My sleep.” But lest they
should do such a villainy unpunished, He meant to repay them at full:
saying, “ My friend and familiar, whom I trusted, and who ate of My
bread, even he hath kicked at Me: but Thou Lord, have mercy upon
Me, raise Me up and I shall requite them.” Who is he now that be-
holds the Jews beaten out of their land, and made vagabonds all the
world over, since the passion of Christ, that conceives not the scope of
this prophecy ? for He rose again after they had killed Him, and repaid
them with temporal plagues, besides those that He reserves for the
rest, until the great judgment: for Christ Himself shewing His betrayer
to the apostles by reaching him a piece of bread ; remembered this
verse of the Psalm, and shewed it fulfilled in Himself, ‘ he that did eat
of My bread, even he hath kicked at Me,” the words, “in whom I
trusted,” agree not with the head but with the members properly ; for
our Saviour knew him well beforehand, when He said, “‘ One of you is
a devil ;” but Christ used to transfer the special qualities of His members
unto Himself, as being their Head, body and head being all one Christ.
And therefore that of the Gospel, “I was hungry, and you gave Me to
eat,” He expounded afterward thus: “In that ye did it to one of
these, ye did it unto Me.” He says therefore, “that he trusted in
him,” as the’ apostles trusted in Judas, when he was made an apostle.
Now the Jews hope that their Christ that they hope for shall never die:
and therefore they hold that the law and the prophets prefigured not
ours, but one that shall be free from all touch of death, whom they do
look for (and may do, long enough). And this miserable blindness
makes them take that sleep and rising again (of which we now speak) in
the literal sense, not for death, and resurrection.

But the sixteenth Psalm confounds them, thus: “ My heart is glad,
and my tongue rejoiceth, my flesh also resteth in hope, for Thou wilt
not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt Thou suffer Thine Holy One to
see corruption.” What man could say that his flesh rested in that hope
that his soul should not be left in hell, but return presently to the flesh
to save it from the corruption of a carcase, excepting Him only that
rose again the third day? It cannot be said of David. ‘The sixty-
eighth Psalm says also: “ Our God is the God that saveth us, and the
issues of death are the Lord’s.” What can be more plain? Jesus
Christ is the God that saves us: “ for Jesus is a Saviour,” as the reason

156 St Augustine.

of His name was given in the Gospel, saying: “ He shall save His
people from their sins:” and seeing that His blood was shed for the
remission of sins, the enemies of death ought to belong unto none but
unto Him, nor could He have passage out of this life, but by death.
And therefore it is said, ‘“‘ Unto Him belong the issues of death ;” to
shew that He by death should redeem the world. And this last is
spoken in wonder, as if the prophet should have said, “ Such is the life
of man, that the Lord Himself leaveth it not, but by death !”

CHAPTER XIX.
The obstinate infidelity of the Jews declared in the sixty-ninth Psalin.

Bur all those testimonies and prefigurations being so miraculously come
to effect, could not move the Jews: wherefore that of the sixty-ninth
Psalm was fulfilled in them: which speaking in the person of Christ, of
the accidents in His Passion, says this also among the rest: “ They
gave Me gall to eat, and when I was thirsty they gave Me vinegar to
drink.” And this banquet which they afforded Him, He thanks them
thus for: “ Let their table be a snare for them, and their prosperity their
ruin ; let their eyes be blinded that they see not, and bend their backs
for ever,” &c., which are not wishes, but prophecies of the plagues that
should befall them. What wonder then if they whose eyes are blinded,
discern nor this, and whose backs are eternally bended, to stick their
aims fast upon earth? for these words being drawn from the literal
sense and the body, import the vices of the mind. And thus much of
the Psalms of David, to keep our intended limits. Those that read
these and know them already, must needs pardon me for being so
copious, and if they know that I have omitted ought that is more con-
cerning mine object, I pray them to forbear complaints of me for it.

CHAPTER XX.

David's kingdom: his merit, his son Solomon. Prophecies of Christ in
Solomon's books: and in books that are annexed unto them.

Davip, the son of the celestial Jerusalem, reigned in the earthly one,
and was much commended in the Scriptures, his piety and true humility
so conquered his imperfections, that he was one of whom we might say,
with him: “Blessed are those whose iniquity is forgiven and whose sins
are covered.” After him, his son Solomon reigned in all his kingdom,
beginning to reign (as we said) in his father’s time. He began well, but
he ended badly: prosperity, the moth of wisdom, did him more hurt
than his famous and memorable wisdom itself profited him. He was
a prophet, as his works, namely the Proverbs, the Canticles, and Ecclesi-

Of the City of God. 157

astes, do prove: all which are canonical. But Ecclesiasticus and the
Book of Wisdom were only called his, for some similitude between his
style and theirs. But all the learned affirm them none of his, yet the
Churches of the West hold them of great authority, and have done long:
and in the Book of Wisdom is a plain prophecy of Christ’s passion, for
his wicked murderers are brought in, saying, ‘‘ Let us circumvent the
just, for He displeases us, and is contrary unto our doings, checking us
for offending the law, and shaming us for breach of discipline. He
boasts Himself of the knowledge of God, and calls Himself the Son of
the Lord: He is made to reprove our thoughts, it grieves us to look
upon Him, for His life is not like other men’s: His ways are of another
fashion. He counts us triflers, and avoids our ways, as uncleanness :
He commends the ends of the just, and boasts that God is His Father.
Let us see then if He say true: let us prove what end He shall have:
if this just man be God’s Son, He will help Him and deliver Him from
the hands of His enemies: let us examine Him with rebukes and tor-
ments, to know His meekness, and to prove His patience. Let us con-
demn Him unto a shameful death, for He says He shall be preserved.”
Thus they imagine, all astray, for their malice has blinded them. In
Ecclesiasticus also is the future faith of the Gentiles prophesied, in these
words, ‘‘ Have mercy upon us, O Lord God of all, and send Thy fear
amongst the nations: lift up Thine hand upon the nations that they may see
Thy power : and as Thou art sanctified in us before them, so be Thou mag-
nified in them before us : that they may know Thee as we know Thee, that
there is no god but only Thou O Lord.” This prophetical prayer we see
fulfilled in Jesus Christ. But the Scriptures that are not in the Jewish
canon are no good proofs against our adversaries. But it would be a
tedious dispute, and carry us far beyond our aim, if I should here stand
to refer all the prophesies of Solomon’s three true books that are in the
Hebrew canon, unto the truth of Christ and His Church. Although
that that of the Proverbs, in the persons of the wicked: “Let us lay
wait for the just without a cause, and swallow them up alive, as they
that go down into the pit, let us raze His memory from earth, and take
away His rich possession,” this may easily and in few words be reduced
unto Christ and His Church: for such a saying has the wicked hus-
bandman in His evangelical parable: “This is the Heir, come let us
kill Him, and take His inheritance.” In the same book likewise, that
which we touched at before (speaking of the barren that brought forth
seven) cannot be meant except of the Church of Christ, and Himself, as
those do easily apprehend that know Christ to be called the “ Wisdom
of His Father:” the words are, “ Wisdom hath built her an house, and
hath hewn out her seven pillars : she hath sacrificed her victims, mingled
her wine in the cup, and prepared her table. She hath sent forth her
maidens to cry from the heights, saying, He that is simple come hither to
me, and to the weak-witted she saith, Come and eat of my bread, and drink

158 St Augustine.

of the wine that I have mingled.” Here we see that God’s Wisdom, the
Co-eternal Word, built Him an house of humanity in a virgin’s womb,
and unto this head has annexed the Church as the members: “ Hath —
sacrificed her victims,” that is, sacrificed the martyrs, “and prepared the
table with bread and wine,” (there is the sacrifice of Melchizedek :)
‘hath called the simple and the weak-witted, for God,” says the apostle,
“hath chosen the weakness of the world to confound the strength by.”
To whom notwithstanding is said as follows: ‘“ Forsake your foolishness,
that ye may live ; and seek wisdom, that ye may have life.” The par-
ticipation of that table is the beginning of life : for in Ecclesiastes, where
he says: “It is good for man to eat and drink,” we cannot understand
it better than of the participation of that table which our Melchizedekian
priest instituted for us in the New Testament. For that sacrifice succeeded
all the Old Testament sacrifices, that were but shadows of the future
good : as we hear our Saviour speaks prophetically in the fortieth psalm,
saying : “Sacrifice and offering Thou didst not desire,” but a body hast
Thou prepared for me: for His body is offered and sacrificed now instead
of all other offerings and sacrifices. For Ecclesiastes means not of carnal
eating and drinking in those words that he repeats so often, as that one
place shews sufficiently, saying : ‘It is better to go into the house of
mourning than of feasting :” and by-and-by after, “The heart of the
wise is in the house of mourning : but the heart of fools is in the house
of feasting.” But there is one place in this book, of chief note, concern-
ing the two cities, and their two kings, Christ and the devil: ‘Woe to
the land whose king is a child, and whose princes eat in the morning.
Blessed art thou, O land, when thy King is the Son of Nobles, and thy
princes eat in due time for strength and not for drunkenness.” Here he
calls the devil a child, for his foolishness, pride, rashness, petulance, and
other vices incident to the age of boyish youths. But Christ he calls
the Son of Nobles, to wit, of the patriarchs of that holy and free city :
-for from them came His humanity. The princes of the former eat in the
morning : before their hour, expecting not the true time of felicity, but
will hurry unto the world’s delights, headlong : but they of the City of
Christ await their future beatitude with patience. This is for strength :
for their hopes never fail them, “ Hope,” says Saint Paul, “ maketh
not ashamed.” “All they that hope in Thee,” says the Psalm, “shall
not be ashamed.” Now for the Canticles, it is a certain spiritual and
holy delight in the marriage of the King and Queen of this city, that is,
Christ and the Church. But this is all in mystical figures, to inflame us
the more to search the truth and to delight the more in finding the
appearance of that Bridegroom to whom it is said there: “Truth hath loved
Thee ;” and of that Bride that receives this word, “Love is in thy
Sera I omit many things with silence, to draw the work towards
an en

Of the City of God. 159

CHAPTER XXI.
Of the Kings of Israel and Judah, after Solomon.

WE find few prophecies of any of the Hebrew kings after Solomon, per-
tinent unto Christ or the Church either of Judah or Israel. For so
were the two parts termed into which the kingdom after Solomon’s
death was divided, for his sins, and in his son Rehoboam’s time: the
ten tribes that Jeroboam, Solomon’s servant, attained, being under
Samaria, was called properly Israel (although the whole nation went
under that name), and the two other, Judah and Benjamin, which re-
mained under Jerusalem, lest David’s stock should have utterly failed,
were called Judah: of which tribe David was. But Benjamin stuck
unto it, because Saul (who was of that tribe) had reigned there the next
before David: these two (as I say) were called Judah, and so dis-
tinguished from Israel, under which the other ten tribes remained sub-
ject: for the tribe of Levi, being the seminary of God’s priests, was
freed from both, and made the thirteenth tribe. Joseph’s tribe, being
divided into two tribes, Ephraim and Manasseh; whereas all the
other tribes make but single ones apiece. But yet the tribe of Levi was
most properly under Jerusalem because of the temple wherein they
served. Upon this division, Rehoboam, King of Judah, Solomon’s son,
reigned in Jerusalem, and Jeroboam, King of Israel, formerly servant to
Solomon, in Samaria. And whereas Rehoboam would have made wars
upon them for falling from him; the prophet forbade him from the
Lord, saying: “That it was the Lord’s doing.” So then that it was no
sin either in the king or people of Israel but the Lord’s will, that was
herein fulfilled : which being known, both parties took up themselves,
and rested: for they were only divided in rule, not in religion.

CHAPTER XXII.

How Jeroboam infected his subjects with idolatry: yet did God never
fail them in prophets, nor in keeping many from that infection.

But Jeroboam, the King of Israel, fell perversely from God (who had
truly enthroned him as He had promised), and fearing that the huge
resort of all Israel to Jerusalem (for they came to worship and sacrifice
in the Temple, according to the law) might be a means to withdraw
them from him unto the line of David (their old king), began to set up
idols in his own realm, and to seduce God’s people by this damnable
and impious subtlety, yet God never ceased to reprove him for it by His
prophets, and the people also that obeyed him and his successors in it
for that time were the two great men of God, Elijah and his disciple
Elisha. And when Elijah said unto God: “ Lord, they have slain Thy
prophets, and digged down Thine altars, and I only am left, and now
they seek my life:” he was answered, “ that God had yet seven thousand
in Israel that had not bowed down the knee to Baal.”

160 St Augustine.

CHAPTER XXIII.

The state of Isvael and Judah until both their captivities, which happened
in different times and circumstances. Judah united to Israel: and
lastly, both unto Rome.

Nor wanted there prophets in Judah (that lay under Jerusalem) in all

these successions : God’s pleasure was still to have them ready, to send

out either for prediction of events, or reformation of manners. For the
kings of Judah did offend God also (though in far less measure than

Israel) and deserved punishment, both they and their people. All their

good kings have their due commendations. But Israel had not one

good king from thence, but all were wicked, more or less. So that both
these kingdoms (as it pleased God) had their revolutions of fortune,
now prosperous, now adverse, through foreign and civil wars, as God’s
wrath, or mercy, was moved: until at length, their sins provoking Him,

He gave them all into the hands of the Chaldeans, who led most part of

them captives into Assyria, first the ten tribes of Israel, and them Judah

also, destroying Jerusalem, and that goodly Temple: and the captivity
lasted seventy years. And then being freed, they repaired the ruined

Temple, and then (although many of them lived in other nations) yet

was the land no more divided, but one prince only reigned in Jerusalem,

and thither came all the whole land to offer and to celebrate their feasts
at the time appointed. But they were not yet secure from all the
nations, for then came the Romans, and under their subjection must

Christ come and find His Israel.

CHAPTER XXIV.

Of the last prophets of the Jews, about the time that Christ was born.
Arter their return from Babylon (at which time they had the prophets,
Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, and Ezra) they had no more pro-
_ phets until our Saviour’s birth, but one other Zechariah, and Elizabeth
his wife: and hard before His birth, old Simeon and Anna, a widow,
and John the last of all, who was about Christ’s years, and did not
prophesy His coming, but announced His presence before unknown.
Therefore said Christ, ‘‘The prophets and the law prophesied unto
John.” The prophecies of these five last, we find in the Gospel, where
the Virgin, our Lord’s mother, prophesied also before John. But these
prophecies the wicked Jews reject, yet an innumerable company of them
did believe, and received them. For then was Israel truly divided,
as was prophesied of old by Samuel unto Saul: and foretold as never
to be altered. But the reprobate Jews also have Malachi, Haggai,
Zechariah, and Ezra in their canon, and they are the last books
thereof: for their books are as the others, full of great prophecies:
otherwise they were but few that wrote worthy of canonical authority.
Of these aforesaid I see I must make some abstracts to insert into
this work, as far as shall concern Christ and His Church: but that
1 may do better in the next book.

THE
EIGHTEENTH BOOK OF THE CITY OF GOD.

Se

CHAPTER I.

A recapitulation of the seventeen books past, concerning the two cities, con-
tinuing unto the time of Christ's birth, the Saviour of the world.

‘a my confutations of the perverse contemners of Christ in respect of

their idols, and the envious enemies of Christianity (which was all
that I did in my first ten books), I promised to continue my discourse
through the origin, progress, and limits of the two cities, God’s and the
world’s, as far as should concern the generation of mankind. Of this my
triple promise, one part, the origin of the cities, have I declared in
the next four books: part of the second, the progress: from Adam to
the deluge, in the fifteenth book: and so from thence unto Abraham I
followed down all the times as they lay. But whereas from Abraham’s
father’s time, until the kingdom of the Israelites (where I ended the
sixteenth book), and from thence unto our Saviour’s birth (where I
ended the seventeenth) I have only carried the City of God along with
my pen, where both the cities ran on together, in the generations of
mankind : this was my reason; I desired first to manifest the descent
of those great and manifold promises of God, from the beginning, until
He, in whom they all were bounded, and to be fulfilled, was come to
be born of the Virgin, without any interposition of aught done in the
worldly city during the mean space: to make the City of God more
apparent, although that all this while, until the revelation of the New
Testament, it did but lie involved in figures: now, therefore, must I
begin where I left off, and bring along the earthly city, from Abraham’s
time, unto this point where I must now leave the heavenly: that having
brought both their times to one quantity, their comparison may shew
them both with greater clearness.

II. L

162 St Augustine.

CHAPTER II.

Of the kings, and times of the earthly city, correspondent unto those of
Abraham.

MankinD, therefore, being dispersed through all the world far and wide
(differing in place, yet one in nature), and each one following his own
affections, and the thing they desired being either insufficient for one, or
all (being not the true good), began to be divided in itself: the weaker
being oppressed by the stronger: for still the weaker dominion, or free-
dom, yielded to the mightier, preferring peace and safety howsoever, so
that they were wondered at that had rather perish than serve, for nature
cries with one voice (almost all the world through), “ It is better to serve
the conqueror, than to be destroyed by war.” Hence it is that some are
kings and some are subjects (not without God’s providence for prince
and subject are unto Him, alike, and both in His power), but in all
those earthly dominions, wherein divided mankind followed each his
temporal profit and respect: we find two more eminent than all the
other, first Assyria, and then Rome: several both in times and places:
the one in the East, long before the other, that was in the West; finally
the end of the first was the beginning of the latter. The other king-
doms were but as appendants unto these two. In Assyria, Ninus ruled,
the second king thereof after his father Belus the first, in whose time
Abraham was born.

Then was Sicyon but a small thing, whence the great scholar Varro
begins his discourse, writing of the Roman nation: and coming from
the Sicyonians to the Athenians, from them to the Latins, and so to the
Romans. But those were trifles in respect of the Assyrians, before
Rome was built. Though the Roman Sallust say that Athens was very
famous in Greece: I think indeed it was more famous, than fame-
_worthy, for he, speaking of them, says thus, ‘“‘ The Athenians’ exploits I
think were worthy indeed: but short of their report: as being enhanced
by their eloquence in relations, and so came the world to ring of Athens,
and the Athenians’ virtues held as powerful in their acts, as their wits
were copious in their reports.” Besides, the philosophers continually
abode thereabouts, and the nourishment of such studies there, added
much unto the fame of Athens. But as for dominion, there was none
in those times so famous, nor so spacious as the Assyrians, for Ninus,
Belus’ son, ruled there with all Asia, the world’s third part in number,
and half part in quantity, under his dominion : out as far as the furthest
limits of Lybia. Only the Indians (of all the East) he had not subdued :
but his wife, Semiramis, warred upon them after his death. Thus were
all the viceroys of those lands at the command of the princes of Assyria.
And in this Ninus’ time was Abraham born in Chaldea. But because
we know the state of Greece better than that of Assyria, and the ancient
writers of Rome’s origin have deduced it from the Greeks to the Latins,

Of the City of God. 163

and so unto the Romans (who are indeed Latins), therefore must we
here reckon only the Assyrian kings as far as need is, to shew the pro-
gress of Babylon (the first Rome) together with that heavenly pilgrim on
earth, the holy City of God: but for the things themselves that shall
concern this work, and the comparison of both cities, them we must
rather fetch from the Greeks and Latins, where Rome (the second
Babylon) is seated.

At Abraham’s birth, therefore, Ninus was the second king of Assyria,
and Europs of Sicyonia, for Belus was the first of the one, and Agialeus
of the other: but when Abraham left Chaldea upon God’s promise of
that universal blessing to the nations in his seed, the fourth king
ruled in Assyria, and the fifth in Sicyonia, for Ninus the son of Ninus,
reigned there after his mother Semiramis, whom they say he slew be-
cause she bore an incestuous lust towards him. Some think she built
Babylon: indeed she might have repaired it: but when and by whom it was
built our sixteenth book declares. Now this son of Ninus and Semira-
mis, that succeeded his mother, some call Ninus and some Ninius by a
derivative from his father’s name. And now was Sicyonia governed by
Telexion, who had so happy a reign that when he was dead, they
adored him as a God, with sacrifices, and plays, whereof it is said they
were the first inventors.

CHAPTER III.

What kings reigned in Assyria and Sicyonia in the hundredth year of
Abraham's age, when Isaac was born according to the promise; or
at the birth of Jacob and Esau.

In his time also did Sarah, being old, barren, and past hope of children,
bring forth Isaac unto Abraham, according to the promise of God.
And then reigned Aralius, the fifth king of Assyria. And Isaac being
threescore years of age, had Esau and Jacob, both at one birth of
Rebecca, Abraham his father being yet living, and of the age of one
hundred and sixty years, who lived fifteen years longer, and then died,
Xerxes the older, called also Baleus, reigning the seventh king of
Assyria, and Thuriachus (called by some Thurimachus) the seventh of
Sicyon. Now the kingdom of the Argives began with the time of these
sons of Isaac ; and Inachus was the first king there. But this we may
not forget out of Varro, that the Sicyonians used to offer sacrifices at
the tomb of the seventh king Thurimachus. But Armamitres being the
eighth king of Assyria, and Leucippus of Sicyonia, and Inachus the -
first king of Argos, God promised the land of Canaan unto Isaac for his
seed, as he had done unto Abraham before, and the universal blessing
of the nations therein also: and this promise was thirdly made unto
Jacob, afterwards called Israel, Abraham’s grandchild, in the time of
Belocus the ninth Assyrian monarch, and Phoroneus, Inachus’ son,
the second king of the Argives, Leucippus reigning as yet in Sicyon.

164 St Augustine.

In this Phoroneus’ time, Greece grew famous for diverse good laws
and ordinances: but yet his brother Phegous, after his death, built a
temple over his tomb, and made him to be worshipped as a god, and
caused oxen to be sacrified unto him, holding him worthy of this
honour, I think, because in that part of the kingdom which he held (for
their father divided the whole between them) he set up oratories to
worship the gods in, and taught the true course and observation of
months and years: which the rude people admiring in him, thought
that at his death he was become a god, or else would have it to be
thought so. For so they say that Io was the daughter of Inachus, she
that afterwards was called Isis, and honoured for a great goddess in
Egypt; though some write that she came out of Ethiopia to be queen
of Egypt, and because she was mighty and gracious in her reign, and
taught her subjects many good arts, they gave her this honour after her
death, and that with such diligent respect, that it was death to say she
had ever been mortal.

CHAPTER IV.
Of the times of Jacob and his son Joseph.

BaLeus being the tenth king of Assyria, and Messappus (otherwise
called Cephisus, but yet both these names were by several authors used
for one man) being the ninth of Sicyonia, and Apis the third of Argos,
Isaac died, being a hundred and eighty years old, leaving his sons at
the ages of a hundred and twenty years: the younger Jacob, belonging
to God’s city, and the elder to the world’s. The younger had twelve
sons, one whereof called Joseph, his brothers sold unto merchants going
into Egypt, in their grandfather Isaac’s time. Joseph lived (by his
humility) in great favour and advancement with Pharaoh, being now
thirty years old. For he interpreted the king’s dreams, foretelling the
seven plenteous years, and the seven dear ones, which would consume
the plenty of the other: and for this the king set him at liberty (being
before imprisoned for his true chastity, in not consenting to his lustful
mistress, but fled and left his raiment with her, who hereupon falsely
complained to her husband of him), and afterwards he made him vice-
royal of all Egypt. And in the second year of scarcity, Jacob came
into Egypt with his sons, being one hundred and thirty years old, as he
told the king. Joseph being thirty-nine when the king advanced him
thus, the seven plentiful years, and the two dear ones being added to
his age.
CHAPTER V.

Of Apis, the Argive king, called Serapis in Egypt, and there adored
as a detty.
Ar this time did Apis, king of Argos, sail into Egypt, and dying there,
was called Serapis, the greatest god of Egypt. The reason of changing

Of the City of God. 165

his name, says Varro, is this: a dead man’s coffin (which all do now
call sapzopdéyor), is oopig also in Greek: so at first they worshipped at
his coffin and tomb, ere his temple were built, calling him at first
Sorosapis or Sorapis: and afterwards (by change of a letter, as is
ordinary) Serapis. And they made a law, that whosoever should say he
had been a man, should die the death. And because that in all the
temples of Isis and Serapis, there was an image with the finger laid
upon the mouth, as commanding silence, this was (says Varro) to shew
them that they must not say that those two were ever mortal. And the
ox which Egypt (being wondrously and vainly seduced), nourished in
all pleasures and fatness unto the honour of Serapis; because they did
not worship him in a coffin, was not called Serapis but Apis: which
ox being dead, and they seeking him, and finding another, flecked of .
colour just as he was: here they thought they had gotten a great god
by the foot. It was not such an hard matter indeed for the devils, to
imprint the imagination of such a shape in any cow’s phantasy, at her
time of conception, to have a mean to subvert the souls of men, and
the cow’s imagination would surely model the conception into such a
form, as Jacob’s ewes did, and his she goats, by seeing the party-
coloured sticks, for that which man can do with true colours, the devil
can do with apparitions, and so very easily frame such shapes.

CHAPTER VI.
The kings of Argos and Assyria, at the time of Jacol’s death.

Apis the king of Argos (not of Egypt) died in Egypt, Argus his son
succeeded him in his kingdom, and from him came the name of the
Argives. For neither the city nor the country bare any such name
before his time. He reigning in Argos, and Eratus in Sicyonia, Baleus
ruling as yet in Assyria, Jacob died in Egypt, being one hundred and
forty-seven in age, having blessed his sons and grandsons at his death, and
prophesied apparently of Christ, saying in the blessing of Judah: “ The
sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor the law-giver from between his
feet, until that come which is promised him: and He shall be the
nations’ expectation.” Now in Argus’ time Greece began to know
husbandry and tillage, fetching seeds from others. For Argus after his
death was counted a god, and honoured with temples and sacrifices.
Which honour a private man, one Homogyrus, who was slain by
lightning, had before him, because he was the first that ever yoked
oxen to the plough.
CHAPTER VII.

In what king's time Joseph died in Fegyft.

In Mamitus’ time, the twelfth Assyrian king, and Phenneus’, the
eleventh king of Sicyonia (Argus being alive in Argos as yet), Joseph

166 St Augustine.

died in Egypt: being a hundred and ten years old. After the death of
him, God’s people remaining in Egypt, increased wonderfully, for a
hundred and forty-five years together, until all that knew Joseph were
dead. And then because their great increase was so envied, and
their freedom suspected, a great and heavy bondage was laid upon
them, in the which nevertheless they grew up still, for all that they
were so persecuted and kept under, and at this time the same princes
ruled Assyria and Greece, whom we named before.

CHAPTER VIII.

What kings lived when Moses was born: and what gods the pagans
had as then.

In Saphrus’ time, the fourteenth Assyrian king, Orthopolus being
then the twelfth of Sicyon, and Criasus the fifth of Argos, Moses was
born in Egypt, who led the people of God out of their slavery, wherein
God had exercised their patience during His pleasure. In the aforesaid
king’s time Prometheus (as some hold) lived, who was said to make
men of earth, because he taught them wisdom so excellently well, yet
are there no wise men recorded to live in his time. His brother Atlas
indeed is said to have been a great astronomer, whence the fable arose of
his supporting heaven upon his shoulders: yet there is an huge moun-
tain of that name, whose height may seem to an ignorant eye to hold
up the heavens. And now began Greece to fill the stories with fables,
but from the first unto Cecrops’ time (the king of Athens) in whose
reign Athens got that name, and Moses led Israel out of Egypt: some
of the dead kings were recorded for gods, by the vanity and custom-
ary superstition of the Greeks. As Melantonice, Crias’ wife, Phorbas
their son, the sixth king of Argos, and the son of Triopas, the seventh
king, Jasus, and Sthelenas or Sthelenus, or Sthenelus (for he is diversely
_ written), the ninth: and in these times also lived Mercury, Atlas’
grandchild, born of Maia his daughter: the story is common. He was
a perfect artist in many good inventions, and therefore was believed (at
least men desired he should be believed) to be a deity. Hercules lived
after this, yet was he about those times of the Argives: some think he
lived before Mercury, but I think they are deceived. But howsoever,
the gravest historians that have written of them avouch them both to be
men, and that for the good that they did mankind in matter of civility
or other necessaries to human estate, were rewarded with those divine
honours. But Minerva was long before this, for she (they say) appeared
in Ogyges’ time, at the lake Triton, in a virgin’s shape, whereupon
she was called Trytonia: a woman indeed of many good inventions,
and the likelier to be held a goddess, because her origin was unknown,
for that of Jove’s brain is absolutely poetic, and no way depending
upon history. There was indeed a great deluge in Ogyges’ time, not

Of the City of God. 167

80 great as that wherein all perished save those in the ark (for that
neither Greek author nor Latin do mention), but greater than that which
befell in Deucalion’s days. But of this Ogyges’ time, the writers have
no certainty, for where Varro begins his book, I shewed before: and
indeed he fetched the Romans’ origin no further than the deluge that
befell in Ogyges’ time. But our chroniclers, Eusebius first, and then
Jerome, following other more ancient authors herein, record Ogyges’
deluge to have fallen in the time of Phoroneus, the second king of
Argos, three hundred years after the time beforesaid. But however,
this at least is certain, that in Cecrops’ time (who was either the builder
or restorer of Athens) Minerva was there adored with divine honours.

CHAPTER IX.

The time when Athens was built, and the reason that Varro gives for the
name.

OF the name of Athens (coming of 444», which is Minerva) Varro gives
this reason. An olive tree grew suddenly up in one place, and a foun-
tain burst out as suddenly in another. These prodigies drew the king
to Delphos, to know the oracle’s mind, which answered him, that the
olive tree signified Minerva, and the fountain Neptune, and that the city
might after which of these they pleased to name their city. Hereupon
Cecrops gathered all the people of both sexes together (for then it was
a custom in that place to call the women unto consultations also) to
give their voices in this election, the men being for Neptune, and the
women for Minerva: and the women being more, won the day for Min-
erva. At this Neptune being angry, overflowed all the Athenians’ lands
(for the devils may draw the waters which way they list), and to appease
him, the Athenian women had a triple penalty set on their heads. First,
they must never hereafter have a vote in council. Second, never here-
after be called Athenians: third, nor ever leave their name unto their
children. Thus this ancient and goodly city, the only mother of arts
and learned inventions, the glory and lustre of Greece, by a scoff of the
devil’s, in a contention of their gods a male and female, and by a femi-
nine victory obtained by women, was enstyled Athens, after the female’s
name that was victor, Minerva: and yet being plagued by him that was
conquered, was compelled to punish the means of the victor’s victory,
and shewed that it feared Neptune’s waters, worse than Minerva’s arms.
For Minerva herself was punished in those her women champions: nor
did she assist those that advanced her, so much as to the bare reservation
of her name unto themselves, besides the loss of their votes in elections,
and the leaving of their names unto their sons : thus they lost the name
of this goddess, whom they had made victorious over a male god:
whereof you see what I might say, but that mine intent carries my pen

on unto another purpose.

168 St Augustine.

CHAPTER X.

Varro's relation of the original of the word Areopage: and of
Deucation’s deluge.

But Varro will believe no fables that make against their gods, lest he
should disparage their majesty: and therefore he will not derive that
Areopagus (the place where St Paul disputed with the Athenians, and
whence the judges of the city had their names), from that, that Mars
(in Greek, épns) being accused of homicide, was tried by twelve gods in
that court, and quit by six voices: so absolved (for the number being
equal on both sides the absolution is to overpoise the condemnation).
But this though it be the common opinion he rejects, and endeavours
to lay down another cause of this name, that the Athenians should not
offer to derive Areopagus from &pys and Pagus: for this were to injure
the gods by imputing broils and contentions unto them, and therefore
he affirms this, and the goddesses’ contention about the golden apple,
both alike, false: though the stage may present them to the gods as true,
and the gods take pleasure in them, be they true or false. This Varro
will not believe, for fear of disgracing the gods in it: and yet he tells a
tale concerning the name of Athens: of the contention between Nep-
tune and Minerva (as frivolous as this), and makes that the likeliest
origin of the city’s name: as if they two contending by prodigies,
Apollo durst not be judge between them, but as Paris was called to
decide the strife between the three goddesses, so he was made an
umpire in this wrangling of these two, where Minerva conquered by her
fautors, and was conquered in her fautors, and getting the name of
Athens to herself, could not leave the name of Athenians unto them.
In these times, as Varro says, Cranaus, Cecrops’ successor, reigned at
Athens, or Cecrops himself, as our Eusebius, and Jerome do affirm: and
then befell that great inundation called the flood of Deucalion : because
it was most extreme in his kingdom. But it came not near Egypt nor
the confines thereof.

CHAPTER XI.

About whose times Moses brought Israel out of Egypt. Of Joshua:
in whose times he died.

In the latter end of Cecrops’ reign at Athens, came Moses with Israel
out of Egypt: Ascatades, Marathus, and Triopas being kings of Assyria,
Sicyon, and Argos. To Sinai did Moses lead them, and there received
the law from above, called the Old Testament, containing all terrestrial
promises: the New one, containing the spiritual, being to come with
Christ our Saviour: for this order was fittest (as it is in every man as
St Paul says) that the natural should be first, and the spiritual after-
wards, because (as he said truly) “ the first man is of earth, earthy, and

Of the City of God. 169

the second man is of heaven, heavenly.” Forty years did Moses rule
this people in the desert, dying a hundred and twenty years old: having
prophesied Christ by innumerable figures in the carnal observations
about the tabernacle, the priesthood, the sacrifices, and other mystical
commands. Unto Moses was Joshua the successor, and he led the
people into the land of promise, and by God’s conduct expelled all the
pagans that swarmed in it, and having ruled seven and twenty years, he
died in the time that Amintas sat as eighteenth king of Assyria; Corax,
the sixteenth of Sicyonia; Danus, the tenth of Argos; and Ericthonius,
the fourth of Athens,

CHAPTER XII.

The false gods, adored by those Greek princes, which lived between
Israel's freedom, and Joshua's death.

Betwixt the departure of Israel out of Egypt, and the death of Joshua,
who led them into the land of promise, the Greek princes ordained
many sorts of sacrifices to their false gods, as solemn memorials of the
deluge, and the freedom of mankind from it, and the miserable time
that they had in it, and upon it, now being driven up to the hill, and
soon after coming down again into the plains ; for this they say the
Luperci running up and down the holy street deciphers, namely,
how the men ran up to the mountains in that great inundation, and
when it ceased, came all down again into the plains. And at this time
they say that Dionysius (otherwise called father Liber, and made a god
after his decease) did first shew the planting of the vine in Attica: and
then were there musical plays dedicated to Apollo of Delphos, to
appease him whom they thought had afflicted all Greece with barren-
ness, because they defended not his temple which Danaus, in his
invasion, burned: and the oracle itself charged them to ordain those
plays. Ericthonius was the first that presented them in Attica, both
unto him and Minerva, where he that conquered, had a reward of oil,
which Minerva they say invented, as Liber had found out the wine:
and in these times did Xanthus, King of Crete, carry off Europa, and
begat Rhadamanthus, Sarpedon, and Minos, who are reported to be the
sons of Jove and Europa. But the pagans yield to the truth of history
in this matter of the king of Crete: and this that hangs at every poet’s
pen, and at every player’s lips, they do account as a fable, to prove their
deities wholly delighted in beastly untruths: and now was Hercules
famous at Tyre: not he that we spoke of before: (for the more secret
histories say there were many Hercules, and many father Libers) and
this Hercules they make famous for twelve sundry rare exploits (not
counting the death of the African Anteus amongst them, for that
belongs to the other Hercules), and this same Hercules do they make
to burn himself upon Mount Oeta, his virtue whereby he had subdued

170 St Augustine,

so many monsters, failing him now in the patient endurance of his own
pains: and at this time Busyris (the son of Neptune and Libia, daughter
to Epaphus), and king, or rather tyrant, of Egypt, used to murder strangers
and offer them to his gods: O but we must never think Neptune could
have committed this adultery or the gods will be incriminated, let the
poets have this scope to fill the stage and please the gods withal! It is
said that Vulcan and Minerva were parents to this Ericthonius, in the
end of whose reign Joshua died. But because they hold Minerva a virgin,
therefore (say they) in their striving together, the seed of Vulcan fell upon
the earth, and thence came this king as his name shews: for ép/¢ is ‘ strife,’
and yay, is ‘earth:’ which joined do make Ericthonius. But indeed
the best learned of them do reject this filthiness from their gods, and
say that the fable arose hereupon, that in the temple of Vulcan and
Minerva, which were both one at Athens, there was a little child found
with a dragon wound about him, which was a sign that he should prove
a famous man, and because of this temple’s knowing no other parents
that he had, they called him the son of Vulcan and Minerva: but
howsoever, that fable does manifest his name better than this history.
But what is that to us when as this is written in true books, to instruct
religious men, and that is presented on public stages to delight the
unclean devils, whom notwithstanding their truest writers honour as
gods, with those religious men? and let them deny this of their gods,
yet can they not acquit them of all crime, in affecting the presenting of
those filthinesses, and in taking pleasure to behold those things filthily
acted, which wisdom seems to say might better be denied: for suppose
the fables belie them, yet if they do delight to hear those lies of them-
selves, this makes their guilt most true.

CHAPTER XIII.

What fictions got footing in the nations when the Judges began
Jirst to rule Israel.

Josuua being dead, Israel came to be ruled by judges: and in those
times they prospered, or suffered, according to the goodness of God’s
mercies, or the defeat of their sins. And now the fiction of Triptolemus
was on foot, who by Ceres’ appointment flew all over the world with a
yoke of dragons, and taught the use of corn: another fiction also of the
Minotaur, shut in the labyrinth, a place which none that entered could
ever get out of. Of the Centaurs also, half men and half horses: of
Cerberus, the three-headed dog of hell. Of Phryxus and Helle, who
flew away on the back of a ram. Of the Gorgon, whose hairs were
snakes, and who turned all that beheld her into stones. Of Belle-
rophon, and his winged horse Pegasus: of Amphion, and his stone-
moving music on the harp. Of C&dipus, and his answer to the monster

Of the City of God. 171

Sphinx’s riddle, making her break her own neck from her stand. Of
Antzeus, earth’s son, killed by Hercules in the air, for that he never
smote him to the ground but he arose up as strong again as he was
when he fell: and others more that I perhaps have omitted. Those
fables, unto the Trojan war, where Varro ended his second book, ‘“ De
Gente Romanorum,” were by men’s inventions so drawn from the truth
of history that their gods were no way by them disgraced. But as for
those that feigned that Jupiter stole Ganymede, that goodly boy, for his
lustful use (a villainy done by Tantalus and ascribed unto Jove), or that
he came down to lie with Danz in a shower of gold (the woman being
tempted by gold unto dishonesty): and all this being either done or de-
vised in those times, or done by others, and feigned to be Jove’s: it cannot
be said how mischievous the presumption of those fable-forgers was
upon the hearts of all mankind, that they would bear with such ungodly
slanders of their gods: which they did notwithstanding, and gave them
gracious acceptance, whereas had they truly honoured Jupiter, they
would severely have punished his slanderers. But now they are so far
from checking them, that they fear their gods’ anger if they do not
nourish them, and present their fictions unto a populous audience. About
this time Latona bore Apollo, not that god of the oracles beforesaid,
but he that kept the herds of King Admetus with Hercules: yet was he
afterwards held a god, and counted one and the same with the other.
And then did father Liber make war in India, leading a crew of women
about with him in his army, called Bacche, being more famous for their
madness than their virtue. Some write that this Liber was conquered
and imprisoned: some, that Perseus slew him in the field, mentioning
his place of burial also: and yet were those wicked sacrilegious sacrifices
called the Bacchanals, appointed by the unclean devils unto him, as
unto a god. But the Senate of Rome at length (after long use of them)
saw the barbarous filthiness of these sacrifices, and expelled them the
city. And in this time Perseus and his wife Andromeda being dead,
were verily believed to be assumed into heaven, and thereupon the
world was neither ashamed nor afraid to give their names unto two goodly
constellations, and to form their images therein.

CHAPTER XIV.
Of the theological poets.

Azout that time lived poets, who were called theologians, versifying of
their men-made gods: or of the world’s elements (the true God’s handi-
works), or the principalities and powers (whom God’s will and not
their merit, had so advanced), of these as of gods did they make their
poems. If their fables contained anything that concerned the true
God, it was so intermingled with the rest, that He was neither to be

172 St Augustine. Ms

discerned from their false gods thereby, nor could they take that
direction to give him the whole, his only due, but must needs worship
the creatures as gods, with God the Creator, and yet could not abstain
from disgracing the same their gods with obscene fables. Such was
Orpheus, Muszus, and Linus. But those were only the gods’ servants,
not made gods themselves. Though Orpheus, I know not by what
means, has gotten the ruling of the infernal sacrifices, or rather sacri-
leges in the city of the devil. The wife of Athamas also, Ino, cast
herself headlong into the sea with her child Melicertes, and yet were
reputed gods, as others of those times were also, as Castor and Pollux.
Ino was called by the Greeks, Leucothea, and by the Latins, Metuta,
and held a goddess ty both parts.

CHAPTER XV.

The ruin of the Argive kingdom: Picus, Saturn’s son, succeeding him in
Laurentum.

THEN was the Argive kingdom translated to Myczene, where Agamem-
non ruled: and then arose the kingdom of the Laurentines, which Picus,
Saturn’s son, was the first successor in, Deborah, a woman, being judge
of the Jews : God’s Spirit indeed judged in her, for she was a prophetess :
(her prophecy is too obscure to draw unto Christ without a long dis-
course). And now had the Laurentines had a kingdom in Italy, from
whence (after their descent from Greece) the Roman’s pedigree is drawn.
Still the Assyrian monarchy kept up: Lampares, the twentieth king, ruling
there now, when Picus began his kingdom in Laurentum. His father
Saturn (the pagans say) was no man: let the pagans look to that:
some of them have written that he was, and that he was king here
before his son Picus, Ask these verses of Virgil, and they will tell
you—

“Is genus indocile ac dispersum montibus altis
Composuit, legesque dedit, Latiumque vocari
Maluit : his quoniam latuisset tutus in oris.
Aureaque ut perhibent illo sub rege fuére.”
‘The undocile sort on mountains high dispersed
He did compose, and gave them laws, and first
Would call it Latium, when he latent lay,
In whose reign was the golden age men say.’

But these they say are poetical fictions. Sterces was Saturn’s father, he
that invented manuring of the ground with dung, which of him was
called Stercus : some say they called him Stercutius: well, howsoever
he got the name of Saturn, he was the same Sterces or Stercutius whom
they deified for his husbandry. And Picus, his son, was deified after
him also a cunning soothsayer, and a great soldier as they report him

Of the City of God. 173

to be. He begat Faunus, the second king of Laurentum, and he was

made a sylvan god. And these men were deified before the Trojan
war,

CHAPTER XVI.

How Diomedes was deified after the destruction of Troy: and his fellows
said to be turned into birds.

Troy (whose destruction the excellent wits of elder times have left
recorded unto all memory, as well as the greatness of itself) being now
destroyed in the reign of Latinus, son to Faunus (and from him came
the Latin name, the Laurentine ceasing): the Grecian victors returning
each one to his home, were sore afflicted on all sides, and destroyed in
great numbers: yet some of them got to be gods. For Diomedes was
made one, who never returned home, and his fellows they say became
birds: this now they have history for, nor poetry only, yet neither could
his new god-head, nor his entreaty of Jove prevail so much as to turn
his fellows unto men again. It is said also that he has a temple in the
Isle Diomedea, not far from Mount Gargarus in Apulia, where these
birds continually fly about the temple, and dwell there with such
wonderful obedience, that they will wash the temple with water which
they bring in their beaks, and when any Grecian comes thither, or any
of a Greek race, they are quiet, and will be gentle with them, but if any
one else come they will fly at his face with great fury, and hurt some even
to death, for their beaks are very big, sharp, and strong, as it is said.

CHAPTER XVII.
Of the incredible changes of men that Varro believed.

Varro, to get credit unto this, reports many strange tales of that famous
witch Circe, who turned Ulysses’ fellows into beasts: and of the Arca-
dians, who swimming over a certain lake became wolves, and lived with
the wolves of the woods: and if they ate no man’s flesh, at nine years’
end, swimming over the said lake they became men again. Nay, he
names one Demonetus, who tasting of the sacrifices, which the Arcadi-
ans (killing of a child) offered to their god Lyczeus, was turned into a
wolf, and becoming a man again at ten years’ end, he grew to be a
champion, and was victor in the Olympic games. Nor does he think
that Pan and Jupiter were called Lyczi in the Arcadian history for any
other reason than for their transforming of men into wolves: for this
they held impossible to any but a divine power: a wolf is called Aung
in Greek, and thence came their name Lyceeus: and the Roman Luperci
(says he) had their origin from their mysteries.

174 St Augustine.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Of the devil’s power in transforming man’s shape: what a Christian may
believe herein.

Some perhaps will look for our opinion here, touching this deceit of the
devils, what a Christian, should do, upon thts report of miracles amongst
the infidels. What shall we say, “but get you out of the midst of
Babylon”? this prophetical command wills us, to ply our faith’s feet
as fast as we can, and quit ourselves of this worldly city compact of a
confused crew of sinners and evil angels, and hie us unto the living
God. For the greater power we behold in the deceiver, the firmer hold
must we lay upon our mediator, by whom we leave the dregs and ascend
unto the height of purity. So then if we should say, all those tales are lies,
yet are there some that will avow they have either heard them for truth,
of persons of credit, or have seen them tried themselves. For when I
was in Italy, I heard such a report there, how certain women of one
place there, would but give one a little drug in cheese, and presently he
became an ass, and so they made him carry their necessaries whither
they would, and having done, they reformed his figure again : yet had
he his human reason still, as Apuleius had in his ass-ship, as himself
writes in his book of the golden ass; be it a lie or a truth that he writes.
Well either these things are false, or incredible, because unusual. But
we must firmly hold God’s power to be omnipotent in all things: but
the devils can do nothing beyond the power of their nature (which is
angelical, although malevolent) unless He whose judgments are ever
secret, but never unjust, permit them. Nor can the devils create any-
thing (whatever shows of theirs produce these doubts) but only cast a
changed shape over that which God has made, altering only in show.
Nor do I think the devil can form any soul or body into bestial or
brutal members, and essences: but they have an unspeakable way of
transporting man’s phantasy in a bodily shape, unto other senses (this
running ordinarily in our dreams through a thousand several things, and
though it be not corporal, yet seems to carry itself in corporal forms
through all these things) while the bodies of the men thus affected lie in
another place, being alive, but yet in an ecstasy far more deep than any
sleep. Now this phantasy may appear unto other senses in a bodily
shape, and a man may seem to himself to be such an one as he often
thinks himself to be in his dream, and to bear burdens, which if they be
true burdens indeed, the devils bear them, to delude men’s eyes with
the appearance of true burdens, and false shapes. For one Preestantius
told me that his father took that drug in cheese at his own house, where-
upon he lay in such a sleep that no man could awake him: and after a
few days he awoke of himself and told all he had suffered in his dreams
in the meanwhile, how he had been turned into a horse and carried the
soldiers’ victuals about in a budget. Which was true as he told, yet

Of the City of God. 175

seemed it but a dream unto him: another told how one night before he
slept, an old acquaintance of his, a philosopher, came to him and ex-
pounded certain Platonisms unto him, which he would not expound
him before. So afterwards he asked him why he did it there which he
would not do in his own house when he was entreated? “TI did it not,”
quoth the other, “indeed I dreamed that I did it.” And so that which the
one dreamed, the other in a fantastical appearance beheld: these now
were related by such as I think would not lie, for had anyone told them,
they would not have been to be believed. So then those Arcadians,
whom the god (nay the devils rather) turned into wolves, and those
fellows of Ulysses being charmed by Circe into bestial shapes, had only
their phantasy, occupied in such forms, if there were any such matter.
But for Diomedes’ birds, seeing there is a generation of them, I hold
them not to be transformed men, but that the men were taken away,
and they brought in their places, as the hind was, in Iphigenia’s room,
Agamemnon’s daughter. The devil can play such juggling tricks with
ease, by God’s permission, but the virgin being found alive afterwards,
this was a plain deceit of theirs to take away her, and set the hind there.
But Diomedes’ fellows, because they were never seen (the evil angels
destroying them) were believed to be turned into those birds that were
brought out of their unknown habitations into their places. Now for
their washing of his temple, their love to the Greeks, and their fury
against others, they may have all this by the devil’s instinct: because
it was his endeavour to persuade that Diomedes was become a god,
thereby to make them injure the true God, by adoring feigned ones,
and dead persons (with temples, altars, priests, and sacrifices) who
when they lived, had no life: all which honours being rightly bestowed,
are peculiar to that one true and only God.

CHAPTER XIX.
That Aineas came into Italy when Abdon was judge of Israel.

Troy being now taken and razed, Aneas with ten ships filled with the
remains of Troy came into Italy, Latinus being king there, Mnestheus
at Athens, Poliphydos in Sicyon, Tautanos in Assyria, and Abdon
judging Israel. Latinus dying, Aineas reigned three years in the same
time of the same kings, excepting that Pelasgus was king of Sicyon, and
Samson judge of the Hebrews, who was counted Hercules for his
admired strength. AZneas being not to be found after his death, was
canonized for a god by the Latins. So was Sangus or Sanctus by the
Sabines. And at this time Codrus, the king of Athens, went in
disguise to be slain of the Peloponnesians, the Athenians’ enemies ; and
so he was: hereby delivering his country from ruin. For the Pelopon-
nesians had an oracle told them that they should conquer if they killed

176 St Augustine.

not the Athenian king. So he deceived them by his disguise, and
giving them evil words, provoked them to kill him, whereof Virgil says :
“Or the quarrels of Codrus.” And him the Athenians sacrificed unto
asa god. Now in the reign of Sylvius, the fourth Latin king (Aineas’
son by Lavina, not by Creusa, nor brother to Ascanius) Oneus, the
nine and twentieth of Assyria, Melanthus, the sixteenth of Athens, and
Eli the priest judging Israel, the Sicyonian kingdom fell to ruin, which
endured (as it is recorded) 959 years.

CHAPTER XX.
Of the succession of the kingdom in Israel after the judges.

Soon after (in those kings’ times) the judges ceased, and Saul was
anointed the first king of Israel, in Samuel the prophet’s time: and now
began the Latin kings to be called Sylvii, of Sylvius, Aéneas’ son: all after
him, had their proper names several, and this surname in general, as the
emperors that succeeded Czesar, were called Czsars long after. But
Saul and his issue being rejected, and he dead, David was crowned,
forty years after Saul began his reign. Then had the Athenians no
more kings after Codrus, but began an aristocracy. David reigned
forty years, and Solomon his son succeeded him, he that built that
goodly temple of. God at Jerusalem. In his time the Latins built
Alba, and their kings were thenceforth called Alban kings, though
ruling in Latium. Rehoboam succeeded Solomon, and in his time
Israel was divided into two kingdoms, and either had a king by itself.

CHAPTER XXI.

Of the Latian kings: ineas (the first) and Aventinus (the twelfth)
are made gods.

Latium, after Aineas, their first deified king, had eleven more, and none
of them deified. But Aventinus, the twelfth, being slain in war, and
buried on that hill that bears his name, he was put into the calendar
of their men-gods. Some say he was not killed, but vanished away,
and that Mount Aventine had not the name from him but from another:
after him was no more gods made in Latium but Romulus, the builder
of Rome, betwixt whom and Aventine were two kings: one Virgil
names, saying,

“ Proximus ille Procas Troianz gloria gentis.”

In whose time, because Rome was now upon hatching, the great
monarchy of Assyria took end. For now after one thousand three
hundred and five years (counting Belus’ reign also in that little
kingdom at first) it was removed to the Medes. Procas reigned before

Of the City of God. 177

Amulius. Now Amulius had made Rhea (or Ilia) his brother Numitor’s
daughter, a vestal virgin, and Mars they say lay with her (thus they
honour her whoredom) and begot two twins on her, who (for a proof
of their foresaid excuse for her) they say were cast out, and yet a she-
wolf, the beast of Mars, came and fed them with her dugs: as acknow-
ledging the sons of her lord and master. Now some do say that there
was an whore found them when they were first cast out, and she sucked
them up. (Now they called whores “ lupze,” ‘she-wolves,’ and the stews
unto this day are called “lupanaria”). Afterwards Pastulus, a shepherd,
had them (they say), and his wife Acca brought them up. Well, what
if God, to tax the bloody mind of the king that commanded to drown
them, preserved them from the water and sent this beast to give them
nourishment? Is this any wonder? Numitor, Romulus’ grand-sire,
succeeded his brother Amulius in the kingdom of Latium, and in the
first year of his reign was Rome built, so that from thenceforward, he
and Romulus reigned together in Italy.

CHAPTER XXII.

Rome founded at the time of the Assyrian monarchy’s fall, Hezekiah being
King of Judah.

BRIEFLY, Rome, the second Babylon, daughter of the first (by which
it pleased God to quell the whole world, and fetch it all under one sove-
reignty) was now founded. The world was now full of hardy men,
painful and well practised in war. They were stubborn, and not to be
subdued but with infinite labour and danger. In the conquests of the
Assyrians over all Asia, the wars were of far lighter account, the people
were weak in their defences, nor was the world so populous. For it
was not above a thousand years after that universal deluge wherein all
died but Noah and his family, that Ninus conquered all Asia excepting
India. But the Romans came not to their monarchy with that ease that
he did: they spread by little and little, and found sturdy hindrances in
all their proceedings. Rome, then, was built when Israel had dwelt in the
land of promise 718 years, 27 under Joshua, 329 under the Judges, and
362 under the Kings, until Ahaz, now King of Judah, or as others count,
unto his successor Hezekiah, that good and godly king, who reigned
(assuredly) in Romulus’ time: Hosea in the meantime being King of
Israel.

CHAPTER XXIII,
Of the evident prophecy of Sibylla Erythrea concerning Christ.

In those days Sibylla Erythrea (some say) prophesied : there were

many sibyls (says Varro), more than one. But this sibyl of Erythrea

wrote some apparent prophecies of Christ, which we have read in
M

178 St Augustine.

rough Latin verses, not correspondent to the Greek, the interpreter
we learned afterwards, being none of the best poets. For Flaccianus,
a learned and eloquent man (one that had been Consul’s Deputy),
being in a conference with us concerning Christ, shewed us a Greek
book, saying they were this sibyl’s verses, wherein in one place, he
shewed us a sort of verses so composed, that the first letter of every
verse being taken, they all made these words, inoods xproros deod os,
owrnp. Jesus Christus, Dei Filius, Salvator, ‘Jesus Christ, Son of God
the Saviour.’ Now these verses, as some have translated into Latin, are
thus. The English of them you shall have in the note under in an
acrostic out of the Greek. :

Now this translator could not make his verses’ ends meet in the same
sense that the Greek meet in: as for example, the Greek letter w 1s in
the head of one verse, but the Latins have no word beginning with w that
could fit the sense. And this is in three verses, the fifth, the eighteenth,
and the nineteenth. Again, we do not take these letters from the verses’
heads in their just number, but express these five words, Jesus Christus

1 “ Tn sign of Doomsday, the whole earth shall sweat :
E ver to reign, a King in heavenly seat,
S hall come to judge all flesh, the faithful and
U nfaithful too, before this God shall stand,
S eeing Him high with saints, in time’s last end.

C orporeal shall He sit ; and thence, extend

His doom on souls. The earth shall quite lie waste,
Ruined, o’ergrown with thorns, and men shall cast
Idols away, and treasure. Scorching fire

S hall burn the ground, and thence it shall inquire,

T hrough seas, and sky, and break Hell’s blackest gates :

So shall free light salute the blessed states

O f saints ; the guilty, lasting flame shall burn.

No act so hid, but then to light shall turn ;

N or breast so close, but God shall open wide.

E achwhere shall cries be heard, and noise beside

Of gnashing teeth. The sun shall from the sky
F ly forth ; and stars no more move orderly.

G reat Heaven shall he dissolved, the moon deprived
Of all her light ; places at height arrived
Depressed ; and valleys raiséd to their seat :

T here shall be nought to mortals, high or great.
FH ills shall lie level with the plains ; the sea
E ndure no burden ; and the earth, as they,

S hall perish cleft with lightning: every spring
And river burn. The fatal trump shall ring

U nto the world, from heaven, a dismal blast
Including plagues to come for ill deeds past.

Old Chaos, through the cleft mass, shall be seen,
U nto this bar shall all earth’s kings convene :

R ivers of fire and brimstone flowing from heaven.”

Of the City of God. 179

Det Filius, Salvator. The verses are in all twenty-seven, which make a
trine, fully quadrate, and solid. For three times three is nine, and
three times nine is twenty-seven. Now take the five first letters from
the five first words of the Greek sentence included in the verse’s heads,
and they make #évc, ‘a fish,’ a mystical name of Christ, who could be
in this mortal world as in a deep sea, without all sin. Now this Sibylla
Erythrea, or (as some rather think) Cumaena, has not one word in all
her verses (whereof these are a portion) tending to idolatry, but all
against the false gods and their worshippers, so that she seems to me to
have been a citizen of the City of God. Lactantius also has prophecies
of Christ out of some sibyl, but he says not from which. But that,which
he scatters in short fragments do I think good to lay together, and make
one large prophecy of his many little ones. This it is: ‘“‘ Afterwards He
shall be taken by the ungodly, and they shall strike God with wicked
hands, and spit their venomous spirits in His face. He shall yield His
holy back to their strokes, and take their blows with silence, lest they
should know that He is the Word, or whence He came to speak to
mortals. They shall crown Him with thorn, they gave Him gall
instead of vinegar to eat, this table of hospitality they shall afford Him.
Thou foolish nation, that knewest not thy God, but crownedst Him with
thorn, and didst feast Him with bitterness. The veil of the temple shall
rend in two, and it shall be dark for three hours at noonday. ‘Then
shall He die and sleep three days, and then shall He arise again from
death and shew the first fruits of the Resurrection to them that are
called.” All this has Lactantius used in several places, as he needed,
from the sibyl: we have laid it together, distinguishing it only by the
heads of the chapters, if the transcriber have the care to observe and
follow us. Some say Sibylla Erythrea lived in the Trojan war, long
before Romulus.

CHAPTER XXIV.

The seven sages in Romulus time: Israel led into captivity:
Romulus dies, and ts deified,

“In Romulus’ time lived Thales, one of those who (after the theological
poets, in which Orpheus was chief) were called the wise men or sages,
And now did the Chaldeans subdue the ten tribes of Israel (fallen before
from Judah), and lead them into Chaldea captive, leaving only the
tribes of Judah and Benjamin free, who had their king’s seat at Jeru-
salem. Romulus dying, and being not to be found, was hereupon
deified, which use was now almost given over, so that in the Cesars’
times they did it rather upon flattery than error; and Tully com-
mends Romulus highly in that he could deserve those in so wise and
learned an age, though philosophy were not yet in her height of
subtle and acute positions and disputations. But although in the later

180 St Augustine.

days they made no new gods of men, yet kept they their old ones still,
and gave not over the worship of them: increasing superstition by their
swarms of images, whereof antiquity had none: and the devils working
so powerfully with them, that they got them to make public presenta-
tions of the gods’ shames, such as if they had been undreamed of before,
they would have been ashamed to invent then. After Romulus reigned
Numa, who stuffed all the city with false religion, yet could he not shape
a godhead for himself out of all this chaos of his consecrations. It
seems he stowed heaven so full of gods that he left no room for
himself. He reigning at Rome, and Manasseh over the Hebrews
(that wicked king that killed the Prophet Isaiah), Sibylla Samia lived,
as it is reported.

CHAPTER XXV.

Philosophers living in Targuinius Priscus’ time, and Zedekiah, when
Jerusalem was taken, and the Temple destroyed.

ZEDEKIAH ruling over the Hebrews, and Tarquinius Priscus (successor
to Ancus Martius) over the Romans, the Jews were carried captive to
Babylon, Jerusalem was destroyed, and Solomon’s temple razed. The
prophets had told them long before that their wickedness would be the
cause of this, chiefly Jeremiah, who told them the very time that it
would hold: about this time lived Pittacus of Mitylene, another of the
sages. And the other five also (which with Thales and this Pittacus make
seven) lived all (as Eusebius says) within the time of the Israelites’ cap-
tivity in Babylon. Their names were Solon of Athens, Chilo of Lace-
demon, Periander of Corinth, Cleobulus of Lindum, and Bias of
Prienzeum. ‘These were all after the theological poets, and were more
famous for their better discipline of life, than others observed, and for
that they gave sundry good instructions, touching the reformation of
manners. But they left no records of their learning to posterity, except-
ing only Solon, that left the Athenians some laws of his making. Thales
was a naturalist, and left books of his opinions: and in this time also
lived Anaximander, Anaximenes, and Xenophon, all natural philo-
sophers, and Pythagoras also, from whom philosophy seemed to take
beginning.

CHAPTER XXVI.

The Romans were freed from their Kings, and Israel from captivity both
at one time.

At the same time Cyrus, King of Persia, Chaldea, and Assyria, gave the
Jews a kind of release, for he sent fifty thousand of them to rebuild the
Temple, and these only built the altar, and laid the foundations: fo
their foes troubled them with so frequent incursions that the building wa:
left off until Darius’ time. The story of Judith, fell out also in the

Of the City of God. 181

same times: which they say the Jews receive not into their canon.
The seventy years therefore being expired in Darius’ reign (the time
that Jeremiah had foretold), the a had their full fredom: Tarquin
the Proud being the seventh King of Rome: whom the Romans ex-
pelled, and never would be subject to any more kings. Until this time,
had Israel prophets in great numbers, but indeed we have but few of
their prophecies canonically recorded. Of these I said in ending my last
book, that I would make some mention in this, and here it is suitable.

CHAPTER XXVII.

Of the times of the Prophets whose books we have: how they prophesied
(some of them) of the calling of the nation, in the declining of the
Assyrian monarchy, and the Romans’ erecting.

To know the times well, let us go back a little. The prophecy of
Hosea, the first of the twelve, begins thus: “The word of the Lord
that came to Hosea, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah,
kings of Judah,” Amos writes also that the prophecy in Uzziah’s days,
adding that Jeroboam lived in those times also, as he did indeed.
Isaiah, also the son of Amos (either the prophet or some other, and this
latter is more generally held) names the four in the beginning of his
prophecy, that Hosea named. So does Micah also. All these their
prophecies prove to have lived in one time: together with Jonah
and Joel, the first under Uzziah, and the latter under his son Jotham.
But we find not the times of the two latter, in their books, but in the
Chronicles. Now these times reach from Procas or Aventinus’ pre-
decessor, King of the Latins, unto Romulus, now King of Rome, nay
even unto Numa Pompilius, his successor: for so long reigned Heze-
kiah in Judah. And therefore in the fall of the Assyrian Empire and
the rising of the Roman, did these fountains of prophecy break forth:
that even as Abraham had received the promise of all the world’s being
blessed in his seed, at the first origin of the Assyrian estate: so like-
wise might the testimonies of the person in whom the former was to be
fulfilled, be as frequent both in word and writing in the origin of the
western Babylon. For those prophets that were continually in Israel,
from the first of their kings, were all for their peculiar good, and no way
pertaining to the nations. But for the more manifest prophecies, which
tended also to the nation’s good, it was fit they should begin, when that
city began that was the lady of the nations.

CHAPTER XXVIII.
Prophecies concerning the Gospel, in Hosea and Amos.

Hosea is a prophet as divine as deep. Let us perform our promise, and
see what he says: “In the place where it was said unto them, ye are

182 St Augustine.

not My people, it shall be said, ye are the sons of the living God.”
This testimony the Apostles themselves interpreted of the calling of the
Gentiles: who because they are the spiritual sons of Abraham, and
therefore rightly called Israel: it follows of them thus: “Then the
children of Judah and the children of Israel shall be gathered together
and appoint themselves one head, and they shall come up out of the
land.” If we seek for farther exposition of this, we shall cloy the
sweet taste of the prophet’s eloquence. Remember but the corner
stone, and the two walls, the Jews and the Gentiles, either of them
under those several names, being founded upon that one head, and
acknowledged to ascend from the earth. And that those carnal
Israelites that believe not now shall once believe (being as sons to the
other, succeeding them in their places) the same prophet avouches,
saying: “The children of Israel shall sit many days without a king,
without a prince, without an offering, without an altar, without a priest-
hood, and without manifestations,” who does not see that these are the
Jews? Now mark the sequel. “ Afterwards shall the children of Israel
convert, and seek the Lord their God, and David their king, and shall
fear the Lord and His goodness in these latter days.” Nothing can be
plainer spoken, here is Christ meant by David, as He was the Son of
David in the flesh (says the apostle). Nay, this prophet foretold the
third day of His resurrection also. Hear himself: “ After two days will
He revive us, and in the third day He will raise us up.” Just in this
key spoke Saint Paul, saying: “ If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those
things which are above.” Such a prophecy has Amos also: “ Prepare
to meet thy God, O Israel, for lo, I form the thunder, and the winds,
and declare mine anointed in men:” and in another place: “In that
day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen down, and close
up the breaches thereof, and will raise up his ruins, and build it as in
the days of old: that the residue of mankind, and all the heathen, may
. seek Me, because My name is called upon them, said the Lord that
doeth this.”
CHAPTER XXIX.

Isaiah's prophecies concerning Christ.

Isarau is not one of the twelve prophets. They are called the less pro-
phets, because their prophecies are brief in comparison of others that
wrote large volumes, of whom Isaiah was one, whom I add here, be-
cause he lived in the times of the two afore-named. In his precepts
against sin, and for goodness, and his prophecies of tribulation for
offending, he forgets not also to proclaim Christ and His Church more
amply than any other, in so much that some call him an evangelist
rather than a prophet. One of his prophecies hear in brief, because I can-
not stand upon many. In the person of God the Father, thus he says:
* Behold, My Son shall understand, He shall be exalted and be very

Of the City of God. 183

high: as many were astonied at Thee (Thy form was so despised by
men, and Thy beauty by the sons of men), so shall many nations
admire Him, and the kings shall be put to silence at His sight: for
that which they have not heard of Him, shall they see, and that which
hath not been told them, they shall understand. Lord, who will believe
our report? to whom is the Lord’s arm revealed? we will declare Him
as an infant, and as a root out of a dry ground: He hath neither form
nor beauty, when we shall see Him He shall have neither goodliness
nor glory ; but His look shall be despised and rejected before all men.
He is a man full of sorrows, and hath experience of infirmities. - For
His face is turned away: He was despised and we esteemed Him not.
He hath borne our sins and sorrows for us: yet did we judge Him as
plagued of God, and smitten and humbled. But He was wounded for
our transgressions, and broken for our iniquities: our peace we learned
by Him, and with His stripes we are healed. We have all strayed like
sheep: man had lost his way, and upon Him hath God laid all our
guilt. He was afflicted, yet never opened He His mouth: He was led
as a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before the shearer is dumb,
so was He, and opened not His mouth, He was out from prison unto
judgment: O who shall declare His generation? For He shall be
taken out of life. For the transgression of My people was He plagued:
and I will give the wicked for His grave, and the rich for His death:
because He hath done no wickedness, nor was there any deceit found
in His mouth! The Lord will purge Him from His affliction: if ye
give your soul for sin, ye shall see the seed continue long, and the
Lord shall take His soul from sorrow, to shew Him light, to confirm
His understanding, to justify the righteous, serving many, for He bare
their iniquities. Therefore I will give Him a portion with the great:
He shall divide the spoils of the strong, because He hath poured out
His soul unto death: He was reckoned with the transgressors, and
hath borne the sins of many, and was betrayed for their trespasses.”
Thus much of Christ ; now what says He of His Church? ‘‘ Rejoice,
O barren, that bearest not: break forth and cry out for joy, thou that
bringest not forth : for the desolate hath more children than the married
wife. Enlarge the place of thy tents, and fasten the curtains of thy
tabernacles: spare not, stretch out thy cords, and make fast thy stakes:
spread it yet further to the right hand and the left, and thy seed shall
possess the Gentiles, and dwell in the desolate cities: fear not, because
thou art ashamed: be not afraid, because thou art upbraided, for
thou shalt forget thine everlasting shame, and shalt not remember the
reproach of thy widowhood any more, for the Lord that made thee
is called the Lord of Hosts, and the Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel,
shall be called the God of all the world,” &c. Here is enough, needing
but a little explanation, for the places are so plain that our enemies
themselves are forced (despite their hearts) to acknowledge the truth.
These then suffice.

184 St Augustine.

CHAPTER XXX.

Prophecies of Micah, Jonah, and Joel, correspondent unto the
New Testament,

Tue prophet Micah, prefiguring Christ by a great mountain, says thus :
‘In the last days shall the mountain of the Lord be prepared upon the
tops of the hills, and shall be exalted above the hills: and the nations
shall haste them to it, saying: Come, let us go up into the mountain of
the Lord, into the house of the God of Jacob, and He will teach us
His ways, and we will walk in His paths, for the law shall go forth of
Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge
amongst many people, and rebuke mighty nations afar off.” The same
prophet foretells Christ’s birth-place also, saying: ‘And thou, Beth-
lehem, of Ephratah, art little to be amongst the thousands of Judah,
yet out of Thee shall a Captain come forth unto me that shall be the
Prince of Israel; whose goings forth have been everlasting. There-
fore will He give them up until the time that the child-bearing woman
do travail, and the remnant of her brethren shall return into the chil-
dren of Israel. And He shall stand and look, and feed His flock in
the strength of the Lord, in the honour of God’s name shall they
continue: for now shall He be magnified unto the world’s end.” Now
Jonah prophesied Christ rather in suffering than in speaking, and that
most manifestly considering the passion and resurrection. For why
was he three days in the whale’s belly and then let out, but to signify
Christ’s resurrection from the depth of hell, upon the third day? In-
deed, Joel’s prophecies of Christ and the Church require great ex-
planation, yet one of his (and that was remembered by the apostles,
at the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the faithful, as Christ had
promised) I will not omit: “Afterwards,” says he, “I will pour out
My Spirit upon all flesh; your sons and daughters shall prophesy, and
- your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men see visions:
even upon the servants and the handmaids in those days will I pour
My Spirit.”
CHAPTER XXXI.

Prophecies of Obadiah, Nahum and Habakkuk, concerning the world’s
salvation in Christ.

THEREFORE the lesser prophets Obadiah, Nahum, and Habakkuk never
mention the times: nor does Eusebius or Jerome supply that defect.
They place Obadiah and Micah both together, but not there where they
record the time of Micah’s prophesying, which the negligence of the
transcribers I think was the only cause of. The two other, we cannot
once find named in our copies: yet since they are canonical, we may
not omit them. Obadiah in his writing is the briefest of them all, he
speaks against Idumea, the reprobate progeny of Esau, the elder son of

Of the City of God. 185

Isaac, and grandchild of Abraham. Now if we take Idumea, by a
Synechdoche partis, for all the nations, we may take this prophecy of his
to be meant of Christ: “Upon Mount Zion shall be salvation, and it
shall be holy,” and by-and-by after, ‘“‘ They that shall be saved, shall
come out of Zion” (that is—the believer in Christ, the Apostles, shall
come out of Judah) ‘‘to defend Mount Esau.” How to defend it, but
by preaching the gospel, to save the believers, and translate them into
the kingdom of God out of the power of darkness as the sequel shews?
“And the kingdom shall be the Lord’s.” For Mount Zion signifies
Judea, the store-house of salvation, and the holy mother of Christ in the
flesh: and Mount Esau, is Idumea, prefiguring the church of the
Gentiles, whom they that were saved came out of Zion to defend, that
the kingdom might be the Lord’s. This was unknown ere it were done,
but being come to pass, who did not discern it? Now the prophet
Nahum (nay, God in him) said, “I will abolish the graven and molten
image, and make them thy grave. Behold upon the feet of him that
declareth and publisheth peace. O Judah keep thy solemn feasts, per-
form thy vows, for the wicked shall no more pass through thee, he is
utterly cut off. He that breatheth in thy face, and freeth thee from
tribulation, ascendeth.” Who is this that does thus? remember the
Holy Ghost, remember the Gospel. For this belongs to the New
Testament whose feasts are renewed, never more to cease. The Gospel
we see has abolished all those graven and molten images, those false
idols, and has laid them in oblivion, as in a grave. Herein we see
this prophecy fulfilled. Now for Habakkuk, what does he mean but
the coming of Christ, when he said, “The Lord answered, saying,
write the vision, and make it plain on tables that he may run that
readeth it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the last
it shall speak and not lie, though it tarry wait for it, for it shall surely
come, and shall not tarry.”

CHAPTER XXXII.
The prophecy contained in the song and prayer of Habakkuk.

Anp in his prayer and song who does he speak unto but Christ, saying,
‘© Lord I heard Thy voice, and was afraid, Lord I considered Thy
works, and was terrified.” What is this but an ineffable admiration of
that sudden and unknown salvation of man? “In the midst of two shalt
Thou be known,” what are those two? the two Testaments, the two
thieves, or the two prophets Moses and Elias. “In the approach of
years shalt Thou be known: ” this is plain, it needs no exposition. But
that which follows: “ My soul being troubled therewith, in Thy wrath
remember mercy:” is meant of the Jews, of whose nation He was:
who being mad in their wrath and crucifying Christ, He remembering
His mercy, said, “ Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

186 St Augustine.

God shall come from Teman, and the Holy One from the thick and
dark mountain : from Teman (say some) that is from the south: signifies
the heat of charity and the light of truth. The thick dark mountain may
be taken diversely, but I rather choose to hold it meant of the depth of
the Holy Scriptures prophesying Christ : for therein are many depths for
the industrious to exercise themselves in: and which they find out when
they find Him whom they concern: “ His glory covers the heavens, and
the earth is full of His praise :” that is just as the psalm says. “ Exalt
Thyself O God above the heavens, and let Thy glory be above all the
earth:” His brightness was as the light: His glory shall enlighten the
nations : “ He had horns coming out of His hands :” that was His exten-
sion on the cross: “ There was the hiding of His power,” this is plain.
“Before Him went the word, and followed Him into the field :” that is,
He was prophesied ere He came, and preached after His departure :
“He stood, and the earth moved,” He stood to save, and earth was
moved with believing in Him : “ He beheld the nations, and they were
dissolved :” that is, He pitied, and they repented: ‘He broke the
mountains with violence,” that is, His miracles amazed the proud: “The
eternal hills did bow:” the people were temporarily humbled, to be
eternally glorified: “For my pains I saw His goings in:” that is, I had
the reward of eternity for my labours in charity ; “ The tents of Ethiopia
trembled, and so did they of Midian:” that is, even those nations that
were never under Rome, by the terror of Thy name and power preached,
shall become subject to Christ. “Was the Lord angry against the
rivers, or was Thine anger against the sea?” this implies that He
came not to judge the world, but to saveit: “Thou rodest upon
horses, and Thy chariot brought salvation:” the evangelists are His
horses, for He rules them, and the gospel His chariot, salvation
to all believers: “Thou shalt bend Thy bow above sceptres, Thy
judgment shall restrain even the kings of the earth, Thou shalt cleave
.the earth with rivers,” that is, Thine abundant doctrine shall open the
hearts of men to believe them: unto such it is said, “ Rend your
hearts, and not your garments.” The people shall see Thee, and
tremble ; Thou shalt spread the waters as Thou goest, Thy preachers
shall pour out the streams of Thy doctrine on all sides. “The deep
made a noise :” the depth of man’s heart expressed what it saw: “The
height of His fantasy,” that is, the deep gave out the voice, expressing
(as I said) what it saw. This fantasy was a vision, which He concealed
not, but proclaimed at full. The sun was extolled, and the moon kept
her place. Christ was assumed into heaven, and by Him is the Church
ruled: “Thine arrows flew in the light.” Thy word was openly taught,
and by the brightness of Thy shining arm Thine arrows flew: for
Christ Himself had said, “ What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in
the light.” Thou shalt tread down the land in anger, Thou shalt humble
high spirits by afflicting them. “ Thou shalt thrash the heathen in dis-

Of the City of God. 187

pleasure,” that is, Thou shalt quell the ambitious by Thy judgments :
“Thou went forth to save Thy people and Thine anointed, Thou laidest
death upon the heads of the wicked:” all this is plain: “Thou hast
cut them off with amazement :” Thou hast cut down bad, and set up
good, in wonderful manner: “The mighty shall crown their heads ;
which marvel at this: they shall gape after Thee as a poor man eating
secretly.” For so divers great men of the Jews being hungry after the
bread of life, came to eat secretly, fearing the Jews, as the Gospel shews :
““Thou puttest Thine horses into the sea, which troubled the waters:” that
is, the people ; for unless all were troubled, some would not become
fearful converts, and others furious persecutors. ‘I marked it, and my
body trembled at the sound of my lips: fear came into my bones, and
I was altogether troubled in myself.” See, the height of his prayer and
his prescience of those great events amazed even himself, and he is
troubled with those seas, to see the imminent persecutions of the Church,
whereof he lastly avouches himself a member, saying, “I will rest in
the day of trouble,” as if he were one of the hopeful sufferers and
patient rejoicers ; “ That I may go up to the people of my pilgrimage”
leaving his carnal kindred that wander after nothing but worldly matters,
never caring for their supernal country: “For the fig tree shall not
fructify, nor shall fruit be in the vines : the olive shall fail, and the fields
shall be fruitless: ‘The sheep have left their meat, and the oxen are not
in their stalls.” Here he sees the nation that crucified Christ, deprived
of all spiritual goods, prefigured in those corporal fertilities, and because
the country’s ignorance of God had caused these plagues, forsaking
God’s righteousness through their own pride, he adds this: “TI will
rejoice in the Lord, and joy in God my Saviour: the Lord my God is
my strength, He will establish my feet: He will set me upon high
places, that I may be victorious in His song.” What song? even such
as the Psalmist speaks of: “ He has set my feet upon the rock: and
ordered my goings ; and has put into my mouth a new song of praise
unto God.” In such a song (and not in one of his own praise) does
Habakkuk conquer, glorying in the Lord his God. Some books read
this place better, ‘I will joy in my Lord Jesus.” But the translators
had not the name itself in Latin, otherwise we like the word a great
deal better.

CHAPTER XXXIII.
Prophecies of Jeremiah and Zephaniah concerning the former themes.

JEREMIAH is one of the greater prophets: so is Isaiah, not of the less:
of some of whom I now spoke. He prophesied under Josiah, king of
Judah, Ancus Martius being king of Rome, hard before Israel’s cap-
tivity, unto the fifth month of which he prophesied, as his own book
proves. Zephaniah, a lesser prophet, was also in his time, and prophe-
sied in Josiah’s time also (as himself says), but how long he says not.

188 St Augustine.

Jeremiah’s time lasted all Ancus Martius’s, and part of Tarquinius
Priscus’ reign, the fifth Roman king. For in the beginning of his reign,
the Jews were carried captive. This prophecy of Christ we read in Jere-
miah: “The breath of our mouth, the Anointed our Lord was taken in
our sins.” Here he shews briefly both Christ’s deity and His suffer-
ance for us. Again: ‘‘This is my God, nor is there any besides Him :
He hath found all the ways of wisdom, and taught them to His servant
Jacob, and to Israel His beloved : afterwards was He seen upon earth,
and He conversed with men.” This, some say, is not Jeremiah’s
but Baruch’s transcriber. But the most hold it Jeremiah’s. He says
further: “Behold, the days come (saith the Lord) that I will raise
unto David a just branch, which shall reign as King, and be wise:
and shall execute justice and judgment upon the earth. In His days
shall Judah be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely, and this is the name
that they shall call Him: The Lord our Righteousness.” Of the call-
ing of the Gentiles (which we see now fulfilled) he says thus: “ O Lord
my God and refuge in the day of evil, unto Thee shall the Gentiles
come from the ends of the world, and shall say: Our fathers have
adored false images wherein there was no profit.” And because the
Jews would not acknowledge Christ, but should kill Him, the prophet
says: ‘The heart is heavy in all things, He is a man and who shall
know Him?” His was the testimony also of the New Testament and
Christ the Mediator, which I recited in my tenth book: for he says:
‘Behold the days come that I will make a new covenant with the house
of Israel,” &c. Now Zephaniah, that was of this time also, has this of
Christ ; ‘ Wait upon Me (saith the Lord) in the day of My resurrection,
wherein My judgment shall gather the nations :” and again: “ The Lord
will be terrible unto them: He will consume all the gods of the earth:
every man shall adore Him from his place: even all the isles of the
heathen :” and a little after: “Then will I turn to the people a pure
language, that they may all call upon the Lord, and serve Him with one
consent, and from beyond the rivers of Ethiopia shall they bring Me
offerings. In that day shalt thou not be ashamed for all the works
wherein thou hast offended Me, for then will I cleanse thee of the
wicked that have wronged thee: and thou shalt no more be proud of
Mine holy mountain, and I will leave a meek and lowly people in the
midst of thee, and the remnant of Israel shall reverence the name of
the Lord.” This is the remnant that is prophesied of elsewhere, and
that the apostle mentions, saying: ‘‘there is a remnant at this present
time through the election of grace,” For a remnant of that nation
believed in Christ.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
Daniel's and Exzekiel’s prophecies, concerning Christ and His Church.

Now in the captivity itself, Daniel and Ezekiel, two of the greater pro-
phets, prophesied first. Daniel foretold the very number of years until

Of the City of God. 189

the coming of Christ, and His passion. It is too tedious to particu-
larise, and others have done it before us. But of His power and glory,
thus he said: “I beheld a vision by night, and behold, the Son of
_ Man came in the clouds of heaven, and approached unto the Ancient of
Days, and they brought Him before Him, and He gave Him dominion
and honour, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages
should serve Him ; His dominion is an everlasting dominion, and shall
never be taken away: His kingdom shall never be destroyed.” Ezekiel
also prefiguring Christ by David (as the prophets use), because Christ
took his flesh, and the form of a servant from David’s seed: in the
person of God the Father, does thus prophesy of Him: “I will set up
a Shepherd over My sheep, and He shall feed them, even My servant
David, He shall feed them and be their Shepherd. I, the Lord, will be
their God, and My servant David shall be Prince amongst them:
I the Lord have spoken it.” And again: ‘One King shall be King to
them all: they shall be no more two peoples, nor be divided from
thenceforth into two kingdoms: nor shall they be any more polluted
in their idols, nor with their abominations, nor with all their trans-
gressions : but I will save them out of all their dwelling-places, wherein
they have sinned, and will cleanse them: they shall be My people, and
I will be their God : and David My servant shall be King over them,
and they all shall have one Shepherd.”

CHAPTER XXXV.
Of the three prophecies of Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.

TureeE of the minor prophets, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, all
prophesying in the end of this captivity, remain still. Haggai pro-
phesies of Christ and His Church, thus diversely and plainly: “ Yet
a little while and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea,
and the dry land: and J will move all nations, and the Desire of all
nations shall come, saith the Lord of Hosts.” This prophecy is partly
come to effect, and partly to be effected at the consummation of all.
The angels, and the stars are witness, of heaven’s moving at Christ’s
birth. The miracle of a virgin’s child-birth, moved the earth, the
preaching of Christ in the islands and the continent, moved both sea
and dry land. The nations we see are moved to the faith. Now the
coming of the Desire of all nations, that we do expect, at this day of
judgment: for first He must be loved of the believers and then be de-
sired of the expecters. Now to Zechariah, ‘‘ Rejoice greatly, O daughter
of Zion,” says he of Christ and His Church, “ shout for joy, O daughter of
Jerusalem : behold thy King cometh to thee, He is just, and thy Saviour :
poor, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt, the foal of an ass: His
dominion is from sea to sea, and from the river to the land’s end.” Of

190 St Augustine.

Christ’s riding in this manner, the Gospel speaks: where this pro-
phecy (as much as needs) is recited. In another place, speaking pro-
phetically of the remission of sins by Christ, he says thus to Him:
“Thou in the blood of Thy testament hast loosed Thy prisoners out of
the lake wherein is no water.” This lake may be diversely interpreted
without injuring our faith. But I think he means that barren, bound-
less depth of human miseries, wherein there is no stream of righteous-
ness, but all is full of the mud of iniquity: for of this is that of the
psalm meant: “ He hath brought me out of the lake of misery, and out
of the miry clay.”

Now Malachi, prophesying of the Church (which we see so happily
propagated by our Saviour Christ), has these plain words to the Jews in
the person of God: “I have no pleasure in you, neither will I accept an
offering at your hand: for from the rising of the sun unto the going down
thereof My name shall be great amongst the Gentiles, and in every place
shall be incense offered unto Me, and a pure offering unto Myname: for My
name is great among the heathen, saith the Lord.” This we see offered
in every place by Christ’s priesthood after the order of Melchizedek :
but the sacrifice of the Jews, wherein God took no pleasure but refused,
that they cannot deny is ceased. Why do they expect another Christ,
and yet see that this prophecyis fulfilled already, which could not beexcept
by the true Christ? for He says by-and-by after in the person of God:
“‘ My covenant was with Him of life and peace: I gave Him fear, and
He feared Me, and was afraid before My name. The law of truth was
in His mouth: He walked with Me in peace and equity, and turned
many away from iniquity: for the priest’s lips should preserve know-
ledge, and they should seek the law at His mouth: for He is the
messenger of the Lord of hosts.” No wonder if Christ be called so, for
as He is a servant because of the servant’s form He took, when He
came to men: so is He a messenger, because of the glad tidings which
He brought unto men. For “ evangelium” in Greek, is in our tongue,
‘glad tidings,’ and He says again of Him: “Behold I will send My
messenger and He shall prepare the way before Me: the Lord whom
ye seek, shall come suddenly into His temple, and the Messenger of
the covenant whom you desire: behold He shall come, saith the Lord
of Hosts: but who may abide the day of His coming? who shall endure
when He appeareth?” This place is a direct prophecy of both the
comings of Christ: of the first: “He shall come suddenly into His
temple His flesh,” as He said Himself: “ Destroy this temple, and in
three days I will raise it again.” Of the second: “Behold, He shall
come, saith the Lord of Hosts, but who may abide the day of His
coming?” &c. But those words, “the Lord whom ye seek, and the
Messenger of the covenant whom ye desire,” imply that the Jews, in
that manner that they conceive the Scriptures, desire and seek the
coming of Christ. But many of them acknowledged Him not, being

Of the City of God. 191

come, for whose coming they so longed: their evil deserts having blinded
their hearts.

The covenant, named both here, and there where He said, “ My
covenant was with Him,” is to be understood of the New Testament,
whose promises are eternal, not of the Old, full of temporal promises :
such as weak men esteeming too highly, do serve God wholly for, and
stumble when they see the sinful to enjoy them. Wherefore the
prophet, to put a clear difference between the bliss of the New Testa-
ment, peculiar to the good, and the abundance of the Old Testament,
shared with the bad also, adjoins this, ‘“ Your words have been stout
against Me (saith the Lord) and yet ye said, wherein have we spoken
against Thee? ye have said it is in vain to serve God: and what profit
have we in keeping His commandments, and in walking humbly before
the Lord God of hosts? and now we have blessed others: they that
work wickedness are set up, and they that oppose God, they are de-
livered.” Thus spake they that feared the Lord: each to his neighbour,
the Lord hearkened, and heard it, and wrote a book of remembrance
in His sight, for such as fear the Lord, and reverence His name. That
book insinuates the New Testament. Hear the sequel: ‘They shall
be to Me, saith the Lord of Hosts, in that day wherein I do this, for a
flock: and I will spare them as a man spareth his own son that serveth
him. Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the
wicked, and between him that serveth God, and him that serveth Him
not. For behold the day cometh that shall burn as an oven: and all
the proud and the wicked shall be as stubble, and the day that cometh
shall burn them up, saith the Lord of Hosts, and shall leave them neither
root nor branch. But unto you that fear My name shall the Sun of
Righteousness arise, and health shall be under His wings, and ye shall
go forth and grow up as fat calves. Ye shall tread down the wicked,
they shall be as dust under the soles of your feet in the day that Ishall do
this, saith the Lord of Hosts.” This is that day that is called the day of
judgment, whereof if it please God, we mean to say somewhat, in place
convenient.

CHAPTER XXXVI.
Of the books of Esdras, and the Maccabees.

Arrer Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, the three last prophets, in the
time of the said captivity, Esdras wrote ; but he is rather held an historio-
grapher than a prophet: as the book of Esther is also, containing events
happening about those times; all tending to the glory of God. It may
be said that Esdras prophesied in this, that when the question arose
amongst the young men what thing was most powerful, one answering
kings, the next wine, and the third women, for they often command
kings, yet did the third add more, and said that truth conquered all

192 St Augustine.

things. Now Christ in the Gospel is found to be the truth. From this
time, after the temple was rebuilt, the Jews had no more kings but
princes, unto Aristobulus’ time. The account of which times we have
not in the canonical Scriptures, but in the others, amongst which the
books of the. Maccabees are also, which the Church indeed holds for
canonical because of the vehement and wonderful sufferings of some
martyrs for the law of God before the coming of Christ. Such there
were that endured intolerable torments, yet these books are but apocry-
phal to the Jews.

CHAPTER XXXVII.
The prophets more ancient than any of the Gentile philosophers.

In our prophets’ time (whose works are now so far divulged) there were
no philosophers stirring as yet, for the first of them arose from Pytha-
goras of Samos, who began to be famous at the end of the captivity.
So that all other philosophers must needs be much later, for Socrates
of Athens, the chief moralist of his time, lived after Esdras, as the
chronicles record. And soon after was Plato born, the most excel-
lent of all his scholars. To whom if we add also the former seven,
who were called sages, not philosophers, and the naturalists that fol-
lowed Thales’ study, to wit, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Anaxagoras,
and others, before Pythagoras professed philosophy, not one of these
was before the prophets, for Thales, the most ancient of them all, lived
in Romulus’ time, when this prophetical doctrine flowed from the
fountain of Israel, to be derived unto all the world. Only, therefore,
the theological poets, Orpheus Linus, Muszeus, and the others (if
there were any more) were before our canonical prophets. But they
were not more ancient than our true divine Moses, who taught them
one true God, and whose books are in the front of our canon, and
- therefore though the learning of Greece warms the world at this
day, yet need they not boast of their wisdom, being neither so ancient
nor so excellent as our divine religion, and the true wisdom: we con-
fess, not that Greece, but that the barbarians, as Egypt for example,
had their peculiar doctrines before Moses’ time, which they called their
wisdom: otherwise our Scripture would not have said that Moses
was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians: for there was he born,
adopted, and brought up worthily by the daughter of Pharaoh. But
their wisdom could not be before our prophets, for Abraham himself
was a prophet. And what wisdom could there be in Egypt, before Isis,
their supposed goddess, taught them letters? This Isis was daughter to
Bonus king of Argos, who reigned in the times of Abraham’s grand
children.

Of the City of God, 193

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

Of some Scriptures too ancient for the Church to allow, because that might
cause a suspicion that they are rather counterfeit than true.

Now if I should go any higher, there is the patriarch Noah, before the
great deluge: we may very well call him a prophet, for his very ark,
and his escape in that flood, were prophetical references unto these our
times. What was Enoch, the seventh from Adam? Does not the
canonical epistle of Jude say that he prophesied? The reason that we
have not their writings, nor the Jews neither, is their too great antiquity :
which may cause a suspicion that they are rather feigned to be theirs,
than theirs indeed. For many that believe as they like, and speak as
they list, defend themselves with quotations from books. But the
canon neither permits that such holy men’s authority should be re-
jected, nor that it should be abused by counterfeit pamphlets. Nor
is it any marvel that such antiquity is to be suspected when, as we read
in the histories of the Kings of Judah and Israel (which we hold
canonical) of many things touched at there which are not there ex-
plained, but are said to be found in other books of the prophets, who
are sometimes named, and yet those works we have not in our canon,
nor the Jews in theirs. I know not the reason of this, only I think
that those prophets whom it pleased the Holy Spirit to inspire, wrote
some things historically as men, and other things prophetically as from
the mouth of God, and that these works were really distinct: some
being held their own, as they were men, and some the Lord’s, as
speaking out of their bosoms: so that the first might belong to the
bettering of knowledge, and the latter to the confirming of religion, to
which the canon only has respect, besides which, if there be any works
going under prophets’ names, they are not of authority to better the
knowledge, because it is doubtful whether they are the works of those
prophets or no: therefore we may not trust them, especially when they
make against the canonical truth, wherein they prove themselves directly
false births.

CHAPTER XXXIX.
That the Hebrew letters have been ever continued in that language.

WE may not therefore think as some do, that the Hebrew tongue only
was derived from Heber to Abraham, and that Moses first gave the
Hebrew letters with the law: no, that tongue was derived from man to
man successively by letters as well as language. For Moses appointed
men to teach them before the law was given. These the Scriptures
call Grammaton Isagogos, that is, introductors of letters, because they did
as it were bring them into the hearts of men, or rather their hearts into
them. So then no nation can overpoise our prophets and patriarchs

Il. N

194 St Augustine,

in antiquity of wisdom, for they had divine inspirations; and the
Egyptians themselves, that usually give out such extreme and palpable
lies of their learnings, are proved short of time in comparison with our
patriarchs. For none of them dare say that they had any excellence
of understanding before they had letters, that is, before Isis came and
taught them. And what was their goodly wisdom, think you? Truly
nothing but astronomy, and such other sciences as rather seemed to
exercise the wit than to elevate the knowledge. For as for morality, it
stirred not in Egypt until Trismegistus’ time, who was indeed long
before the sages and philosophers of Greece, but after Abraham, Isaac,
Jacob, Joseph, yea and Moses also: for at the time when Moses was

- born, was Atlas, Prometheus’ brother, a great astronomer, living, and he
was grandfather by the mother’s side to the elder Mercury, who begat
the father of this Trismegistus.

CHAPTER XL.

The Egyptians abominable lyings, to claim their wisdom the age of
100,000 years.

Ir is therefore a monstrous absurdity to say, as some do, that it is above
100,000 years since astronomy began in Egypt. What records have
they for this, that had their letters but two thousand years ago (or
little more), from Isis? Varro’s authority is of worth here, agreeing
herein with the Holy Scriptures. For seeing it is not yet six thousand
years from the first man Adam, how ridiculous are they that overrun
the truth such a multitude of years! whom shall we believe in this, so
soon as him that foretold what now we see accordingly effected? The
dissonance of histories gives us leave to lean to such as do accord with
our divinity. The citizens of Babylon, indeed, being diffused all the
earth over, when they read two authors of like (and allowable) authority,
differing in relations of the eldest memory, they know not which to
believe. But we have a divine history to under-shore us, and we know
that whatsoever secular author he be, famous or obscure, if he contra-
dict that, he goes far astray from truth: but be his words true or false,
they are of no value to the attainment of true felicity.

CHAPTER XLI.

The dissension of philosophers, and the concord of the Canonical
Scriptures.

Bur to leave history, and come to the philosophers whom we left long
ago: their studies seemed wholly to aim at the attainment of beatitude.
Why did the scholars then contradict their masters, but that both were
whirled away with human affections: wherein, although there might be

Of the City of God. 195

some spice of vainglory, each thinking himself wiser and quicker con-
ceited than other, and affecting to be an arch-dogmatist himself, and
not a follower of others: notwithstanding, to grant that it was the love
of truth, that carried some (or the most of them) from their teachers’
opinions, to contend for truth, careless if it were truth or the reverse?
what course, what act can mortal misery perform to the obtaining of true
blessedness, without it have a Divine instruction? as for our canonical
authors, God forbid that they should differ. No, they do not: and
therefore worthily did so many nations believe that God spoke either
in them or by them; this the multitude in other places, iearned and
unlearned, do avow, though your petty company of jugglers in the
schools deny it. Our prophets were but few, lest being more, their
esteem should have been less, which religion ought highly to reverence,
yet are they not so few but that their concord is justly to be admired.
Let one look amongst all the multitude of philosophers’ writings, and
if he find two that tell both one tale in all respects, it may be registered
for a rarity. It were too much for me to stand ranking out their di-
versities in this work. But what dogmatist in all this demon-honouring
city has any such privilege that he may not be controlled, and opposed
by others, with gracious allowance to both parts: were not the Epi-
cureans in great account at Athens, holding that God had nought to do
with man? And were not the Stoics, their opponents, that held the
gods to be the directors of all things, even as gracious as they? Where-
fore I marvel that Anaxagoras was accused for saying that the sun was
a fiery stone, denying the godhead thereof: Epicurus being allowed and
graced in that city, who divided both deities of sun, stars, yea, of Jove
himself and all the rest, in all respect of the world, and man’s supplica-
tions unto them: was not Aristiphus there with his bodily summum
bonum, and Antisthenes with his mental? Both famous Socratists, and
yet both so far contrary to each other in their subjects of beatitude.
The one bade a wise man fly rule, the other bade him take it, and both
had full and frequent audience. Did not everyone defend his opinion
in public, in the town gallery, in schools, in gardens, and likewise in all
private places? One held one world, another a thousand: some hold
that one created, some not created: some hold it eternal, some not
eternal: some say it is ruled by the power of God, others by chance.
Some say the souls are immortal, others mortal: some transfuse them
into beasts, others deny it; some of those that make them mortal, say
they die presently after the body ; others say they live longer, yet not
for ever: some place the chiefest good in the body, some in the soul,
some in both: some draw the external goods to the soul and the body :
some say the senses go always true, some say but sometimes, some say
never. These and millions more of dissensions do the philosophers
bandy; and what people, state, kingdom, or city of all the diabolical
societv has ever brought them to the test, or rejected these and received

196 St Augustine,

the other, but has given nourishment to all confusion in their very
bosoms, and upheld the rabble of curious janglers, not about lands, or
cases in law, but upon main points of misery and bliss? Wherein if
they spake true, they had as good leave to speak false, so fully and
so fitly sorted their society to the name of Babylon, which (as we said)
signifies “ confusion.” Nor cares their king, the devil, how much they
jangle, it procures him the larger harvest of variable impiety. But the
people, state, nation, and City of Israel, to whom God’s holy laws were
left, they used not that licentious confusion of the false prophets with
the true, but all in one consent held and acknowledged the latter for the
true authors, recording God’s testimonies. These were their sages, their
poets, their prophets, their teachers of truth and piety. He that lived
after their rules, followed not man, but God; who spake in them. The
sacrilege forbidden there, God forbids: the commandment of “honour thy
father and mother,” God commands. “Thou shalt not commit adultery,
nor murder, nor shalt steal :” God’s wisdom pronounces this not the wit
of man. For what truth soever the philosophers attained and disputed
of amidst their falsehood, as, namely, “That God framed the world,
and governed it most excellently, of the honesty of virtue, the love of
our country, the faith of friendship, just dealing,” and all the things
belonging to good manners: they knew not to what end the whole
was to be referred: the prophets taught that from the mouth of God
in the persons of men, not with inundations of arguments, but with
apprehension of fear and reverence of the Lord in all that understood
them.
CHAPTER XLII.

Of the translations of the Old Testament out of Hebrew into Greek, by the
ordinance of God for the benefit of the nations.

TueEsE Scriptures one Ptolemy, a king of Egypt, desired to understand,
~ for after the strange and admirable conquest of Alexander of Macedon,
surnamed “the Great,” wherein he brought all Asia and almost all the
world under his subjection, partly by fair means and partly by force
(who came also into Judea), his nobles after his death making a turbu-
lent division, or rather a dilaceration of his monarchy, Egypt came to be
ruled by the Ptolemies. The first of which was the son of Lagus, who
brought many Jews captive into Egypt: the next was Philadelphus, who
freed all those captives, sent gifts to the temple, and desired Eleazar
the priest to send him the Old Testament, whereof he had heard great
commendations, and therefore he meant to put it into his famous
library : Eleazar sent it in Hebrew, and then he desired interpreters of
him, and he sent him seventy-two, six of every tribe, all most perfect in
the Greek and Hebrew. Their translation do we now usually call the
Septuagint’s, The report of their divine concord therein is admirable :
for Ptolemy having (to try their faith) made each one translate by him-

Of the City of God. 197

self, there was not one word difference between them, either in sense
or order, but all was one, as if only one had done them all: because
indeed there was but one spirit in them all. And God gave them that
admirable gift, to give a divine commendation to so divine a work,
wherein the nations might see that presaged, which we all see now
effected.

CHAPTER XLIII.

That the translation of the Seventy has most authority, next unto the
LTebrew.

THERE were other translators out of the Hebrew into the Greek, as
Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion, and that nameless interpreter whose
translation is called the fifth edition. But the Church has received that
of the Seventy, as if there were no other, as many of the Greek Chris-
tians, using this wholly, know not whether there be or no. Our Latin
translation is from this also. Although one Jerome, a learned priest,
and a great linguist, has translated the same Scriptures from the Hebrew
into Latin. But although the Jews affirm his learned labour to be all
truth, and avouch the Seventy to have oftentimes erred, yet the Churches
of Christ hold no one man to be preferred before so many, especially
being selected by the high priest, for this work: for although their con-
cord had not proceeded from their unity of spirit but from their colla-
tions, yet were no one man to be held more sufficient than they all.
But seeing there was so divine a demonstration of it, truly whosoever
translates from the Hebrew, or any other tongue, either must agree
with the Seventy, or if he dissent, we must hold by their prophetical
depth. For the same Spirit that spake in the prophets, translated in
them. And that Spirit might say otherwise in the translation, than in
the prophet, and yet speak alike in both, the sense being one unto the
true understander though the words be different unto the reader, The
same Spirit might add also, or diminish, to shew that it was not man’s
labour that performed this work, but the working Spirit that guided the
labours. Some held it good to correct the Seventy, by the Hebrew,
yet durst they not put out what was in them and not in the Hebrew,
but only added what was in that and not in them, marking the places
with asterisks at the heads of the verses, and noting what was in the
Seventy, and not in the Hebrew, with lines, as we mark ounces of
weight withal: and many Greek and Latin copies are interspersed with
these marks. But as for the alterations, whether the difference be great
or small, they are not to be discerned but by a collation of the books.
If therefore we go all to the Spirit of God and nothing else, as is fittest,
whatsoever is in the Seventy, and not in the Hebrew, it pleased God to
speak it by those latter prophets, and not by these first. And so con-
trariwise of that which is in the Hebrew and not in the Seventy, herein

198 St Augustine.

shewing them both to be prophets, for so did He speak this by Isaiah,
that by Jeremiah, and other things by others as His pleasure was. But
what we find in both, that the Spirit spake by both ; by the first as pro-
phets, by the latter as prophetical translations: for as there was one
Spirit of peace in the first who spake so many several things without
discordance, so was there in these who translated so agreeably without
conference.

CHAPTER XLIV.

Of the destruction of Nineveh, which the Hebrew prefixes forty days
unto, and the Septuagint but three.

Ay, but will some say, How shall I know whether Jonas said, “ Yet
forty days and Nineveh shall be destroyed,” or, “ Yet three days”?
who does not see that the prophet, presaging their destruction, could
not say both: if at three days’ end they were to be destroyed, then not
at forty: if at forty, then not at three.

If I be asked the question, I answer for the Hebrew. For the Seventy
being long after, might say otherwise, and yet not against the sense, but
as pertinent to the matter as the other, though in another significa-
tion: advising the reader not to leave the signification of the history
for the circumstance of a word, nor to contemn either of the authorities :
for those things were truly done at Nineveh, and yet had a reference
farther than Nineveh: as it was true that the prophet was three days
in the whale’s belly, and yet intimated the being of the Lord of all the
prophets three days in the womb of the grave. Wherefore if the Church
of the Gentiles were prophetically figured by Nineveh, as being destroyed
in repentance, to become quite different from what it was: Christ doing
this in the said Church, it is He that is signified both by the forty days,
and by the three: by forty, because he was so long with His disciples
‘after His resurrection, and then ascended into heaven ; by three, for on
the third day He arose again: as if the Septuagints intended to stir the
reader to look further into the matter than the mere history, and that
the prophet had intended to intimate the depth of the mystery; as if
he had said: “Seek Him in forty days whom thou shalt find in three :” .
this in His Resurrection, and the other in His Ascension. Wherefore
both numbers have their fit signification, both are spoken by one Spirit,
the first in Jonah, the latter in the translators. Were it not for tedious-
ness, I could reconcile the Seventy and the Hebrew in many places
wherein they are held to differ. But I study brevity, and according to
my talent have followed the apostles, who assumed what made for their
purposes out of both the copies, knowing the Holy Spirit to be one in
both. But to proceed with our purpose.

Of the City of God. 199

CHAPTER XLV.

The Jews had no prophets ever after the repairing of the Temple, and
were affiicted even from thence until Christ came : to shew the prophets
spoke of the building of the other Temple.

AFTER the Jews were left destitute of prophets, they grew daily worse
and worse: namely, from the end of their captivity, when they hoped
to grow into better state upon the repairing of the Temple. For so that
carnal nation understood Haggai’s prophecy, saying: “The glory of
this last house shall be greater than the first:” which he shews that
he meant of the New Testament in the words before, where he promised
Christ expressly, saying: “I will move all nations, and the Desire ot
all nations shall come.” Where the Seventy used a sense rather applic-
able to the members than the Head, saying: ‘“ And they that are
God’s elect shall come out of all nations,” to wit, the men of whom
Christ said in the Gospel, “ Many are called, but few are chosen.” For
those chosen, is the house of God built by the New Testament, of living
stones, far more glorious than that which was built by Solomon, and
repaired after the captivity. Therefore from thence had this nation no
more prophets, but were sore afflicted by aliens, even by the Romans them-
selves, to teach them that Haggai was not speaking of that house which
they had repaired. For Alexander came soon after that, and subdued
them: who, although he made no massacre of them (for they durst do no
other but yield at his first beck), yet there was the glory of that Temple
proved inferior to what it had been in the times of their own free kings.
For in the temple did Alexander sacrifice, not in any true worship
unto God, but giving Him a place in the adoration of his false deities.
Then came the fore-named Ptolemy, son to Lagus, after Alexander’s
death, and he led many of them captive into Egypt, yet his son Phila-
delphus did courteously free them afterwards, and had the Seventy to
translate the Old Testament for him, as I said before: from whence it
came into our hands.

After all this, the wars mentioned in the Maccabees, lay upon them.
And in process of time, Ptolemy, king of Alexandria, subdued them (he
that was called Epiphanes), and then were they extremely plagued,
forced to offer to idols, and their temple filled with sacrilegious pollution
by Antiochus, king of Syria, whose powers notwithstanding Judas Mac:
cabeus utterly subverted, and restored the temple to the ancient
dignity. i .

Within a while after, did Alcimus (a man born out of the priests’
blood) by ambition aspire to the priesthood, and then about fifty years
after, all which were passed under the variable chance of war, did
Aristobulus assume a diadem, and became both king and priest. For
all the time before, ever since the captivity, they had no kings, but cap-
tains and generals, or princes (though a king may be called a prince,

200 St Augustine.

because of his pre-eminence, but all that are captains and princes are
not kings, as Aristobulus was). To him did Alexander succeed both in
the kingdom and the priesthood, and is recorded for a tyrant over his
people. He left the regality to his wife Alexandra, and from thence
began the Jews’ extremities of affliction. For her two sons, Aristobulus
and Hircanus, contending for the principality, called the Roman forces
to come against Israel by the means of Hircanus demanding their aid
against his brother. Then had the Romans conquered all Africa and
Greece, and having commanded over a multitude of other nations, the
state seemed too heavy for itself, and brake itself down with its own
burden. For now had sedition gotten strong hold amongst them,
breaking out into confederacies, and civil wars, wherewith it was so
maimed, that now all declined unto a monarchic form of government.
But Pompey, the great general of Rome’s forces, brought his powers
into Judea, took Jerusalem, opened the Temple doors (not to go in to
pray unto God, but to prey upon God rather) and not as a worshipper,
but as a profaner, entered the sanctum sanctorum, a place only lawful
for the high-priest to be seen in. And having seated Hircanus in the
priesthood, and made Antipater provost of the province, he departed,
carrying Aristobulus away with him, prisoner. Here began the Jews to
be the Romans’ tributaries. Afterwards came Cassius and spoiled the
Temple And within a few years after, Herod an alien was made their
governor, and in his time was our Saviour Christ born.

For now was the fulness of the time come which the patriarch pro-
phetically implied, saying, “The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor
the law-giver from between his feet, until Shiloh come, and He shall
gather the nations unto Him.” For the Jews had never been without a
prince of their blood, until Herod’s time, who was their first alien king.
Now then was the time of Shiloh come, now was the New Testament to
be promulgated, and the nations to be reconciled to the truth. For it
were impossible that the nations should desire Him to come in His
_ glorious power to judge (as we see they do), unless they had first been
united in their true belief upon Him, when He came in His humility to
suffer.

CHAPTER XLVI

Of the Word's becoming flesh, our Saviours birth + and the dispersion
of Jews.

Herop reigning in Judea, Rome’s government being changed, and
Augustus Cesar being emperor, the world being all at: peace, Christ
(according to the precedent prophecy) was born in Bethlehem of Judah,
being openly man of His virgin mother, and secretly God, of God, His
Father: for so the prophet had said: “ Behold, a virgin shall conceive,
and bear a Son: and she shall call His name, Emmanuel, that is, God

Of the City of God, 201

with us.” Now He shewed His deity by many miracles, which, as far
as concerns His glory and our salvation, are recorded in the Gospel.
The first is His miraculous birth, the last His as miraculous ascension.
But the Jews who rejected Him, and slew Him (according to the need
fulness of His death and resurrection), after that were miserably spoiled by
the Romans, chased all into the slavery of strangers, and dispersed them
over the face of the whole earth. For they are in all places with their
Testament, to shew that we have not forged those prophecies of Christ,
which many of them considering, both before His passion and after His
resurrection, believed in Him, and they are the remnant that are saved
through grace. But the rest were blind, as the Psalm says: “ Let their
table be made a snare unto them, and their prosperity their ruin: let
their eyes be blinded that they see not, and make their loins alway to
tremble.” For in refusing to believe our Scriptures, their own (which
they read with blindness) are fulfilled upon them.

Some say that the sybil’s prophecies which concern the Jews are but
fictions of the Christians: but that suffices us that we have from the
books of our enemies, which we acknowledge in that they preserve it for
us against their wills, themselves and their books being dispersed as far as
God’s Church is extended and spread ; in every corner of the world, as
that prophecy of the Psalm, which they themselves do read, foretells
them : “ My merciful God will prevent me : God will let me see my desire
upon mine enemies. Slay them not, lest my people forget it, but
scatter them abroad with Thy power.” Here did God shew mercy
to His Church, even upon the Jews, His enemies, because, as the
apostle says, “ through their fall cometh salvation to the Gentiles.” And
therefore He slew them not, that is, He left them their name of Jews still,
although they be the Roman’s slaves, lest their utter dissolution should
make us forget the law of God concerning this testimony of theirs. So
it were nothing to say, “Slay them not,” but that He adds, “Scatter
them abroad:” for if they were not dispersed throughout the whole
world with their Scriptures, the Church should want their testimonies
concerning those prophecies fulfilled in our Messiah.

CHAPTER XLVII.

Whether any but Israelites, before Christ's time, belonged to the
City of God.
WHEREFORE any stranger, be he no Israelite born, nor his works allowed
for canonical by them, if he have prophesied of Christ, that we can
know or rehearse, may be added unto the number of our testimonies:
not that we need his words, but because it is no error to believe that
there were some of the Gentiles to whom this mystery was revealed,
and who were inspired by the Spirit of prophecy to declare it: were
they elect or reprobate, and taught by the evil spirits, whom we know

202 St Augustine.

confessed Christ being come, though the Jews denied Him: nor do
I think the Jews dare aver, that no man was saved after the propaga-
tion of Israel, but Israelites: indeed there was no other people properly
called the people of God. But they cannot deny that some particular
men lived in this world and in other nations that were belonging to the
heavenly hierarchy. If they deny this, the story of holy Job convinces
them, who was neither a native Israelite, nor a proselyte, adopted by
their law, but born and buried in Idumea: and yet is he so highly com-
mended in the Scriptures, that there was none of his time (it seems)
that equalled him in righteousness, whose time though the chronicles
express not, yet out of the canonical authority of his own book we
gather him to have lived in the third generation after Israel. God’s
providence (no doubt) intended to give us an instance in him, that there
might be others in the nations that lived after the law of God, and in
His service, thereby attaining a place in the celestial Jerusalem: which
we must think none did but such as foreknew the coming of the
Messiah, Mediator between God and man, who was prophesied unto
the saints of old that He should come just as we have seen Him to have
come in the flesh : thus did one faith unite all the predestinated into one
city, one house, and one Temple for the living God. But what other
prophecies soever there pass abroad concerning Christ, the vicious may
suppose that we have forged, therefore there is no way so sure to batte1
down all contentions in this kind, as by citing the prophecies con
tained in the Jews’ books: by whose dispersion from their propet
habitations all over the world, the Church of Christ is happily increased

CHAPTER XLVIII.

Haggai’s prophecy of the glory of God’s house fulfilled in the Church, not
in the Temple.

-Tuts is that House of God more glorious than the former for all the
precious material: for Haggai’s prophecy was not fulfilled in the re-
pairing of the Temple, which never had that glory after the restoring
that it had in Solomon’s time: but rather lost it all, the prophets ceas
ing, and destruction ensuing, which was performed bythe Romans as I
formerly related. But the House of the New Testament is of another
lustre, the workmanship being more glorious, and the stones being more
precious. But it was figured in the reparation of the old Temple, because
the whole New Testament was figured in the Old one. God’s prophecy,
therefore, that saith, “‘In that place will I give peace,” is to be meant of
the place signified, not of the place significant: that is, as the restoring
that house prefigured the Church which Christ was to build, so God
said, “in this place” (that is, in the place that this prefigures), “ will I
give peace,” for all things signifying, seem to support the persons of the
things signified, as St Peter said: “the Rock was Christ :” for it sig-
nified Christ. So then, far is the glory of the House of the New Testa-

Of the City of God. 203

ment above the glory of the Old, as shall appear in the final dedication.
Then shall the Desire of all nations appear (as it is in the Hebrew) : for
His first coming was not desired of all the nations, for some knew not
whom to desire, nor in whom to believe. And then also shall they that
are God’s elect out of all nations come (as the LXX. read it), for none
shall come truly at that day but the elect, of whom the apostle says,
“ As He hath elected us in Him, before the beginning of the world:”
for the Architect Himself, that said, ‘“‘ Many are called, but few are
chosen,” He spake not of those that were called to the feast and then
cast out: but meant to shew that He had built an house of His
elect, which time’s worst spite could never ruin. But being altogether
in the Church as yet, to be hereafter sifted, the corn from the chaff, the
glory of this House cannot be so great now, as it shall be then, where
every man shall be always there where he once comes.

CHAPTER XLIX.

The Church's increase uncertain, because of the commingling of elect and
reprobate in this world.

THEREFORE in these mischievous days, wherein the Church works for
His future glory in present humility, in fears, in sorrows, in labours, and
in temptations, joying only in hope when she joys as she should, many
reprobate live amongst the elect: both come into the Gospel’s net, and
both swim at random in the sea of mortality, until the fishers draw them
to shore, and then the bad are thrown from the good, in whom as in
His temple, God is all in all. We acknowledge therefore His words in
the Psalm, “ I would declare and speak of them, but they are more than

Iam able to express, to be truly fulfilled.” This multiplication began

at that instant when first John His messenger, and then Himself
in person began to say, “Repent ye, for the kingdom of God is at
hand.” He chose Him disciples, and named the apostles: poor, |
ignoble, unlearned men, that what great work soever was done He
might be seen to do it inthem. He had one, who abused His goodness,
yet used He this wicked man to a good end, to the fulfilling of His
passion, and presenting His Church an example of patience in tribula-
tion. And having sown sufficiently the seed of salvation, He suffered,
was buried, and rose again ; shewing by His suffering what we ought to
endure for the truth, and by His resurrection what we ought to hope for
from eternity, besides the ineffable sacrament of His blood, shed for the
remission of sins. He was forty days on earth with His disciples after-
wards, and in their sight ascended to heaven, ten days later sending
down His promised Spirit upon them: which in the coming, gave that
manifest and necessary sign of the knowledge in languages of all
nations, to signify that it was but one catholic Church, that in all those
nations should use all those tongues.

204. St Augustine.

CHAPTER L.

The Gospel preached, and gloriously confirmed by the blood of the preachers.
Anp then, as it is written, “The law shall go forth from Sion, and the
word of the Lord from Jerusalem,” and as Christ had foretold, when
(His disciples being astonished at His resurrection) He opened their
understandings in the Scriptures, and told them that it was written thus:
“Tt behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise again the third day, and that
repentance, and remission of sins should be preached in His name
amongst all nations, beginning at Jerusalem:” and where they asked _
Him of His second coming, and He answered, “‘It is not for you to

know the times and seasons which the Father hath put in His own power:
but ye shall receive power of the Holy Ghost when He shall come
upon you, and ye shall be witnesses of Me in Jerusalem, and in all
Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the utmost part of the earth.” First
the Church spread itself from Jerusalem, and then through Judea, and
Samaria, and those lights of the world bare the Gospel unto other
nations ; for Christ had armed them, saying, “Fear not them that kill
the body but are not able to kill the soul:” they had the heat of love
that kept out the cold of fear: finally, by their persons who had seen
Him alive, and dead, and alive again: and by the horrible persecutions
endured by their successors after their death, and by the ever conquered
(to others unconquerable) tortures of the martyrs, the Gospel was
diffused through all the habitable world: God going with it in miracles,
in virtues, and in gifts of the Holy Ghost: in so much that the nations
believing in Him who suffered for their redemption, in Christian love
did hold the blood of those martyrs in reverence, which before, they
had shed in barbarousness, and the kings whose edicts afflicted the
Church came humbly to be warriors under that banner which they cruelly
before had sought utterly to abolish: beginning now to persecute the false
gods, for whom before they had persecuted the servants of the true God.

CHAPTER LI.
That the Church ts established even by the schisms of heresies.

Now the devil seeing his temples empty and all running unto this
Redeemer, set heretics on foot to subvert Christ, in a Christian mask, as
if there were that allowance for them in the heavenly Jerusalem which
there was for contrariety of philosophers in the devil’s Babylon. Such
therefore as in the Church of God do distaste anything, and being
checked and advised to beware, do obstinately oppose themselves
against good instructions, and rather defend their abominations than
discard them, those become heretics, and going forth out of God’s house,
are to be held as our most eager enemies: yet they do the members of
the catholic Church this good, that their fall makes them take better
hold upon God, who uses evil to a good end, and works all for the good
of those that love Him. <« So then the Church’s enemies whatsoever, if
they have the power to impose corporal affliction, they exercise her
patience: if they bait her with opposition only verbal, they practise

Of the City of God. 205

her in her wisdom: and she in loving these enemies exercises His
benevolence and bounty, whether she go about them with gentle per-
suasion or severe correction: and therefore though the devil her chief
opponent, move all his vassals against her virtues, still he cannot injure her
an inch. Comfort she has in prosperity, to be confirmed, and constant
in adversity: and exercised is she in this, to be kept from corruption
in that : God’s providence managing the whole: and so tempering the one
with the other that the Psalmist said fitly: “‘In the multitude of the
cares of mine heart Thy comforts have rejoiced my soul.” And the
apostle also: “Rejoicing in hope and patient in tribulation.” For
the same apostle’s words, saying, “All that will live godly in Christ
shall suffer persecution,” must be held to be in continual action: for
though ab externo abroad, all seem quiet, no gust of trouble appearing,
and that is a great comfort, to the weak especially: yet at home, ad
intus, there do we never want those that offend and molest the godly
pilgrim by their devilish demeanour, blaspheming Christ and the
catholic name, which how much dearer the godly esteem, so much more
grief they feel to hear, if less respected by their pernicious brethren than
they desire it should be: and the heretics themselves, being held to
have Christ, and the sacraments amongst them, grieve the hearts of the
righteous extremely, because many that have a good desire to Christi-
anity, stumble at their dissensions, and again many that oppose it, take
occasion hereby to burden it with greater calamities: the heretics bear-
ing the name of Christians also. ‘These persecutions befall God’s true
servants by the vanity of others’ errors, although they be quiet in their
bodily estate: this persecution touches the heart, and not the body: as
the Psalm says, ‘In the multitude of the cares of mine heart :” not of
my body. But then again, when we revolve the immutability of God’s
promises, who, as the apostle says, ‘‘ knoweth them that are His, whom He
has predestinate to be made like the image of His Son,” there shall not one
of these be lost: therefore the Psalm adds, “‘ Thy comforts have rejoiced
my soul.” Now the sorrow that the godly feel for the perverseness of
evil, or false Christians, is good for their own souls, if it proceed from
charity, not desiring their destruction nor the hindrance of their salva-
tion: and the reformation of such, yields great comfort to the devout
soul, redoubling the joy now, for the grief that it felt before for their
errors. So then in these malignant days, not only from Christ and His
apostles’ time, but even from holy Abel whom his wicked brother slew,
so along unto the world’s end, does the Church travel on her pilgrimage,
now suffering worldly persecutions, and now receiving divine con-
solations.
CHAPTER LII.

Whether the opinton of some be credible, that there shall be no more persecu-

tions after the ten passed, but the eleventh, which ts that of Antichrist.

Burt I think that that is not to be rashly affirmed, which some do think,
viz., that the Church will suffer no more persecutions until Antichrist’s

206, St Augustine.

time than the ten already passed, that his shall be the eleventh and last.
The first was under Nero, the second by Domitian, the third by Trajan,
the fourth by Antoninus, the fifth by Severus, the sixth by Maximinus,
the seventh by Decius, the eighth by Valerian, the ninth by Aurelian,
the tenth by Diocletian and Maximian. For some hold, the plagues of
Egypt being ten in number before Israel’s freedom, to have reference
unto these, Antichrist’s eleventh persecution being like the Egyptians’
pursuit of Israel in the Red Sea, in which they were all drowned.
But I take not those events in Egypt to be any way pertinent unto
these, either as prophecies, or figures, although they that hold other-
wise have made a very ingenious adaptation of the one to the other,
but not by the Spirit of prophecy, but only by human conjecture, which
sometimes may err, as well as not: for what will they that hold this
affirm of the persecution wherein Christ was killed? What rank shall
that have amongst the rest? If they except this, and hold that such
only are to be reckoned as belong to the body and not to the Head,
what do they say to that after the ascension, where Stephen was stoned,
and James the brother of John beheaded, and Peter shut up for the
slaughter, but that the angel freed him? where the brethren were chased
from Jerusalem, and Saul (afterwards made an apostle and called Paul)
played the pursuer amongst them, haling them out to destruction?
and where he himself also being converted, and preaching the faith
which he had persecuted, suffered such afflictions as aforetimes he had
laid upon others, wheresoever he preached, unto Jews or Gentiles? why
do they begin at Nero, when the Church was never without persecutions
through all the time before, whereof it is too tedious to recount the particu-
lars. If they will not begin but at persecutions by a king, why, Herod
was a king, who did the Church extreme injury after Christ’s ascension ?
Again, why are not Julian’s villainies reckoned amongst the ten? was
not he a persecutor that forbade the Christians to be taught the liberal
arts? was not Valentinian the elder (who was third Emperor after him)
deprived of his generalship for confessing Christ? to leave all the
massacres begun at Antioch by this wicked Apostate, until one faithful
and constant young man lying in tortures a whole day, continually sing-
ing psalms, and praying of God, did with his patience so terrify the
persecuting Atheist, that he was both afraid and ashamed to proceed.
Now, lastly, Valens an Arian, brother to the above-named Valentinian,
had not he afflicted the Eastern Church with all extremity, even now
before our eyes? What a lame consideration is it to collect the perse-
cutions endured by an universal Church under one prince, and in one
nation, and not in another? cannot a Church so far diffused, suffer
affliction in one particular nation but it must suffer in all? perhaps they
will not have the Christian persecution in Gothland, by their own king
for one, who martyred many true Catholics, as we heard of divers
brethren who had seen it living in those parts when they were children :
and what can they say to Persia? Have not the persecutions there chased

Of the City of God. 207

divers even unto the towns of the Romans? It may be now quiet, but it
is more than we can tell. Now all these consideration laid together, and
such like as these are, makes me think that the number of the Church’s
persecutions is not to be defined: but to affirm that there may be
many inflicted by other kings before that great and assured one of
Antichrist, were as rash an assertion as the other: let us therefore leave
it in the midst, neither affirming nor contradicting, but only controlling
the rashness of both in others.

CHAPTER LIII.
Of the unknown time of the last persecution.

THE last persecution under Antichrist, Christ’s personal presence shall
extinguish: for, “ He shall consume him with the breath of His mouth,
and abolish him with the brightness of His wisdom,” says the apostle.
And here is a usual question: When shall this be ? It is an unreasonable
one. If the knowledge of it would have done us good, who would
have revealed it sooner than Christ unto His disciples? for they were
not silent when with Him, but asked Him, saying: “ Lord, wilt Thou at
this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” But what said He? “It is
not for you to know the times or seasons which the Father hath put
in His own power.” They asked Him not of the day or hour,
but of the time, when He answered them thus. In vain therefore
do we stand reckoning the remainder of the world’s years; we hear
the plain truth tell us: “It befits us not to know them.” Some talk
how it shall last four hundred, some five hundred, some a thousand
years after the ascension ; everyone has his view, it were in vain to stand
shewing upon what grounds: in a word, their conjectures are all human,
grounded upon no certainty of Scripture. For He that said, “ It is not
for you to know the times,” &c., stops all your accounts and bids you
leave your calculations.

But this being an evangelical sentence, I wonder not that it was not
powerful enough to repress the audacious fictions of some infidels touch-
ing the continuance of Christian religion. For those, observing that
these greatest persecutions did rather increase than suppress the faith
of Christ, invented a sort of Greek verses (as if they had been oracular),
containing how Christ was clear from this sacrilege, but that Peter had
by magic founded the worship of the name of Christ for three hundred
threescore and five years, and at that date it should utterly cease. Oh
learned heads! oh rare inventions! fit to believe those things of Christ,
since you will not believe in Christ: to wit, that Peter learned magic of
Christ: yet was He innocent: and that His disciple was a wizard, and
yet would rather have his Master’s name honoured than his own, working
to that end with his magic, with toil, with perils, and lastly with the
effusion of his blood! If Peter’s witchcraft made the world love Christ
so well, what had Christ’s innocence done that Peter should love Him

208 St Augustine.

so well? Let them answer, and (if they can) conceive that it was that
supernal grace that fixed Christ in the hearts of the nations for the
attainment of eternal bliss: which grace also made Peter willing to
endure a temporal death for Christ, by Him to be received into the
said eternity. And what goodly gods are these, that can presage things
and yet not prevent them! but are forced by one wizard and (as they
affirm) by one child-slaughtering sacrifice, to suffer a sect so injurious to
them to prevail against them so long time, and to bear down all perse-
cutions by bearing them with patience, and to destroy their temples,
images, and sacrifices! Which of their gods is it (none of ours it is)
that is compelled to work these effects by such wicked an oblation? for
the verses say that Peter dealt not with a devil, but with a god, in his
magical operation. Such a god have they, that have not Christ for
their God.

CHAPTER LIV.

The pagans’ foolishness in affirming that Christianity should last but
365 years.

I couLp gather many such as this, if the year were not past that those
lies prefixed and those foolish men expected. But seeing it is now above
three hundred and sixty-five years since Christ’s coming in the flesh, and
the apostles’ preaching His name, what needs any plainer confutation?
For to omit Christ’s infancy and childhood wherein He had no dis-
ciples, yet after His baptism in Jordan, by John, as soon as He called
some disciples to Him, His name assuredly began to be divulged, of
whom the prophet had said, “ He shall rule from sea to sea, and from
the river to the land’s end.” But because the faith was not definitely
decreed until after His passion, to wit, in His resurrection ; for so says
St Paul to the Athenians : “‘ Now He admonisheth all men everywhere,
to repent, because He hath appointed a day in which He will judge the
- world in righteousness, by that Man in whom He hath appointed a faith
unto all men, in that He hath raised Him from the dead.” We shall
do better for the solution of this question, to begin at that time, chiefly
because then the Holy Spirit descended upon that society wherein the
second law, the New Testament, was to be professed, according as
Christ had promised. For the first law, the Old Testament was given
in Sinai by Moses, but the latter which Christ was to give was prophesied
in these words: “ The law shall go forth out of Sion, and the word of the
Lord from Jerusalem.” Therefore He said Himself that it was fit that
repentance should be preached in His name throughout all nations, yet
beginning at Jerusalem. There then began the belief in Christ crucified
and risen again. ‘There did this faith heat the hearts of divers thou-
sands already, who sold their goods to give to the poor, and came
cheerfully to Christ and to voluntary poverty, withstanding the assaults
of the bloodthirsty Jews with a patience stronger than an armed power.

lf this now were not done by magic, why might not the rest, in all the

Of the City of God. 206

world be as clear? But if Peter’s magic had made those men honour
Christ, who both crucified Him and derided Him being crucified, then
I ask them when their three hundred threescore and five years must have
anend? Christ died in the consulship of the two Gemini, the eighth
of the calends of April: and rose again the third day, as the apostles
saw with their eyes, and felt with their hands : forty days after ascended
He into heaven, and ten days after (that is fifty after the resurrection)
came the Holy Ghost, and then three thousand men believed in the
apostles’ preaching of Him. So that then His name began to spread,
as we believe, and it was truly proved, by the operation of the Holy
Ghost : but as the infidels feign, by Peter’s magic. And soon after five
thousand more believed through the preaching of Paul, and Peter’s
miraculous curing of one that had been born lame and lay begging at
the porch of the Temple: Peter with one word, “In the name of our
Lord Jesus Christ,” set him sound upon his feet. Thus the Church
got up by degrees. Now reckon the years by the consuls from the de-
scent of the Holy Spirit that was in the ides of May, unto the con-
sulship of Honorius, and Eutychian, and you shall find full three hun-
dred threescore and five years, expired. Now in the next year, in the
consulship of Theodorus Manlius, when Christianity should have been
utterly gone (according to that oracle of devils, or fiction of fools):
what is done in other places, we need not inquire, but for that famous
city of Carthage, we know that Junius and Gaudentius, two of Hono-
rius’ officers, came thither on the tenth of the calends of April, and
brake down all the idols, and pulled down their temples.

It is now thirty years ago since (almost), and what increase Christi-
anity has had since, is apparent enough: and partly by many whom
the expectation of the fulfilling of that oracle kept from being recon-
ciled to the truth, who since are come into the bosom of the Church,
discovering the ridiculousness of that former expectation. But we that
are Christians ve e¢ ove, in deed and in name, do not believe in Peter,
but in Him that Peter believed in. We are edified by Peter’s sermons
of Christ, but not bewitched by his charms nor deceived by his magic,
but furthered by his religion. Christ, that taught Peter the doctrine of
eternity, teaches us also. But now it is time to set an end to this
book, wherein as far as need was we have run along with the courses of
the two Cities in their confused progress : the one of which, the Baby-
lon of the earth, has made her false gods of mortal men, serving them
and sacrificing to them as she thought good ; but the other, the heavenly
Jerusalem, she has stuck to the only and true God, and is His true
and pure sacrifice herself. But both of these do feel one touch of good
and evil fortune, but not with one faith, nor one hope, nor one law:
and at length, at the last judgment, they shall be severed for ever, and
either shall receive the endless reward of their works. Of these two

ends we are now to discourse.
O

THE
NINETEENTH BOOK OF THE CITY OF GOD.

——:0:——

CHAPTER I.

That Varro observed two hundred and eighty-eight sects of the philosophers
in their question of the perfection of goodness.

\ X 7HERE I am now to draw my discourse (from the progress) unto

the consummation of the state of those two hierarchies, the
celestial and the terrestrial, I must therefore first lay down their argu-
ments (as far as the quantity beseeming this volume may permit) who
intend to make themselves up a beatitude extant even in the continual
misfortunes of man’s temporal mortality: wherein my purpose is to
parallel their vain positions with our assured hope which God has given
us, and with the object of that assurance, namely, the true blessedness
which He will give us: that so confirming our assertions both with Holy
Scriptures, and with such reasons as are fit to be produced against
infidels, the difference of their grounds and ours may be the more
fully apparent. About that question of the final good, the philosophers
have kept a wonderful coil amongst themselves: seeking in every cranny
and cavern thereof for the true beatitude: for that is the final good,
being only desired for itself, all other goods having in their attainments
a reference unto that alone. We do not call that the final good, which
ends goodness, that is, which makes it nothing: but that which profits
it, which gives it fulness of perfection ; nor do we call that the end of
all evil, whereby it ceases to be evil, but that point which mischief
arises unto, still reserving the mischievous nature, that we call the end
of mischief. So, then, the great good and the greatest evil, are the
ends of all good and evil: the final goodness and the final badness.
About which two there has been wonderful inquisition, to avoid the
final evil and attain the final good : this was the daily endeavour of our
worldly philosophers, who though they were guilty of much exorbitance
of error, yet the bonds of nature were such limits to their aphorisms that
they sought no further than either the body, the mind, or both, wherein
to place this summum bonum of theirs. From this tripartite founda-

Of the City of God. 211

tion has M. Varro, in his book “ De Philosophia,” most knowingly then
and diligently observed two hundred and eighty-eight sects to have
origin not in esse, but in fosse, so many several positions may be
drawn from those three fountains: of which to make a brief demonstra-
tion, I must begin with that which he rehearses in the book afore-named,
viz.: That there are four things which everyone desires by nature,
without help of master or industry ; or that habit of life which is called
virtue, and is learned by degrees: namely, either sensible pleasure, or
sensible rest, or both (which Epicurus calls by one name of pleasure),
or the universal first positions of nature, wherein these and the rest are
included, as in the body, health and strength, and in the mind, sharp-
ness of wit, and soundness of judgment: these four, therefore, pleasure,
rest, both, and Nature’s first positives, are in the fabric of man unde.
these respects, that either virtue (the effect of doctrine) is to be desired
for them, or for itself, or they for virtue or for themselves. And
here are foundations for twelve sects, for by this means they
are all tripled: I will shew it in one, and that will make it apparent
in all the rest. Bodily pleasure being either set under virtue,
above it, or equal with it, gives life to three divers opinions. It
is under virtue when virtue rules it and uses it, for it is a virtue
to live for our country’s good, and for the same end to beget
our children: neither of which can be excluded from corporal de-
light, for without that we neither eat, to live, nor use the means of
carnal generation. But when this pleasure is preferred before virtue,
then is it affected in mere respect of itself, and virtue’s attainment is
wholly referred unto that, that is, all virtue’s acts must tend to the pro-
duction of corporal pleasure, or else to the preservation of it: which is
a deformed kind of life, because therein virtue is slave to the commands
of voluptuousness (though, indeed, that cannot properly be called virtue
that is so). But yet this deformity could not want patronage, and that
by many philosophers. Now, pleasure and virtue are joined in equality
when they are both sought for themselves, no way respecting others.
Wherefore, as the subjection, pre-eminence, or equality of virtue unto
voluptuousness, makes three sects, so does rest, delight and rest, and
the first positives of nature make three more in this kind, for they have
their three places under, above, or equal to virtue, as well as the other:
thus does the number arise unto twelve. Now add but one difference,
to wit, society of life, and the whole number is doubled: because who-
soever follows any one of these twelve sects, either does follow it as
respecting himself or his fellow, to whom he ought to wish as well
as himself: so there may be twelve men that hold those twelve positions
each one for their own respect, and another twelve that hold them in
respect of others, whose good they desire as much as their own. Now,
bring in but your new Academics, and these twenty-four sects become
forty-eight, for every one of these positions may be either maintained

212 St Augustine.

Stoically to be certain (as that of virtue, that it is the sole good) or
Academically, as uncertain, and not so assuredly true, as likely to be
true. Thus are there twenty-four affirming the certain truth of those
positions, and twenty-four standing wholly for their uncertainty.
Again, each of these positions may be defended either in the habit of
any other philosopher or of a cynic, and this of forty-eight makes the
whole ninety-six. Again, these may either be disputed of by such as
profess mere philosophy, no way intermeddling with affairs of State,
or by such as love argument, and yet nevertheless, keep a place in
politic directions and employments of the weal public, or by such as
profess both, and by a certain vicissitude, do now play the mere philo-
sophers, and now the mere politicians: and thus is the number trebled,
amounting to two hundred and eighty-eight. Thus much, as briefly as
I could out of Varro, laying down his doctrine in mine own forms.
But to shew how he confesses all the rest but one, and chooses
that, as peculiar to the old Academics of Plato’s institution (continuing
to defend certain aphorisms from him to Polemo, the fourth that
succeeded him), who are quite different from the new Academics
laying down nothing positively, instituted by Archesilas, Polemo’s suc-
cessor: to shew Varro’s opinion in this, that the old Academics were
free both of uncertainty and error. It is too tedious to make
a full relation of it, yet may we lawfully (nay, and must necessarily)
take a view of it in some part: first therefore he removes all the
differences procuring this multitude of sects: his reason is, they aim
not at the perfection of goodness. For he holds not that worthy the
name of a sect in philosophy which differs not from all others in the
main ends of good and evil: the end of philosophy being only beatitude,
which is the main end and perfection of all goodness. This then is the
aim of all philosophers: and such as do not level at this are unworthy
that name. Wherefore in that question of society in life, whether a
wise man should respect the perfection of goodness in his friend as
much as in himself, or do all he does for his own beatitude’s sake:
this now does no way concern the good itself, but the assuming or not
assuming of a companion into the participation of it, not for one’s own
sake, but for his sake that is admitted, whose good the other affects as
he does his own. And likewise in these new Academics, whether
all these assertions be to be held as uncertain, or with that assurance
that other philosophers defended them: the question meddles not with
the nature of that which we are to attain as the end of all good, but it
asks whether there be such a thing or no, averring a doubt hereof rather
than an affirmation: that is, to be more plain, the controversy is,
whether the follower of this perfection may affirm his final good to be
certain, or only that it seems so, but may be uncertain, and yet both
these intend one good. And likewise again, for the habit of the Cynics,
the reality of the good is not called in question, but whether it be to be

Of the Crty of God. 213

followed in such a fashion of life and conversation or no. Finally, there
have been philosophers that have affirmed diversely of the final
good, some placing it in virtue, and some in pleasure, and yet have all
observed one habit of the Cynics and form of carriage: so that the cause
of their being enstyled so, had no manner of reference to the perfection
that they studied to attain. For if it had, then should that end be
peculiar to that habit, and not be communicated with any other.

CHAPTER Ii.

Varo's reduction of the final good out of all these differences unto three
heads and three definitions, one only of which ts the true one.

THEREFORE in these three sorts of life, the contemplative, the active,
and the mixed, if our question be, which of these we should observe ?
we do not meddle with the final good, but with the easy or hard attain-
ment of that good, which accompanies those three several courses:
for being attained, the final good does immediately make the attainer
blessed. But it is neither contemplation, nor action, nor these two
proportioned together, that makes a man blessed, for one may live in
any of these three fashions, and yet be far wide from the true course to
beatitude. So then the questions touching the end of goodness, which
distinguish all those sects, are far different from those of society of life,
academical doubt, the manners of the Cynics, and that of the three courses
of conversation, philosophical, politic, and neuter. For none of all
these do once meddle with the natures of good and evil. Wherefore
Varro having recited the last four, whereby the whole sum of opinions
amounts to two hundred and eighty-eight, because they are not worthy the
name of sects, in that they make no mention of the good that is chiefly
to be desired, he leaves them all, and returns to their first twelve, whose
controversy is about the main point, “‘ Man’s chief good :” out of these will
he gather one direct truth, and shew all the rest to be false. For first he
removes the three sorts of life, and they carry two parts of the number
with them: so there remains but ninety-six. ‘Then go the Cynics, and
they carry forty-eight with them, so there remains but forty-eight: then
send away the new Academics with their parts, so there remains but
thirty-six. And then the social conversation, with the multitude that
it brought, so there remains only twelve, which no man can deny to be
twelve several sects. For their only difference is the highest parts of
good and evil. For the ends of good being found, the evils lie directly
opposite. So these twelve sects are produced by the triplication of
these four, pleasure, rest, both, and nature’s primitive desires and habits,
which Varro calls primogenia. For they are all made either virtue’s
inferiors, and desired only in respect of her, or her superiors, and she
desired only for their sake: or equals, and both are affected for their

214 St Augustine.

own sakes: thus do they amount to twelve several positions. Now of
these four heads, Varro takes away three: pleasure, rest, and both
united: not that he disproves them, but that they are already included
in the fourth: namely the first positives of nature, as well as many things
more are, and therefore what need they keep a number in this rank?
So then of the three remaining deducted from the fourth head, his dis-
course must wholly be framed, to know which of them is the truth:
there can be but one true one by reason, be it in these three, or in some
other thing, as we shall see afterwards. Meantime let us briefly see
Varro’s choice of the three: which are these: “ Whether Nature’s first
positive desires ought to be desired for virtue’s sake, or virtue for theirs,
or both for themselves.”

CHAPTER III.

Varro’s choice amongst the three fore-named sects, following therein the
opinion of Antiochus, author of the old Academical sect.

Tuus he begins to shew in which of them the truth is contained. First,
because the question concerns not the beatitude of gods, or beasts, or
trees, but of man, he holds it fit to examine what man is. Two things he
finds in his nature, body and soul, whereof the soul he affirms to be the
far more excellent part. But whether the soul be only man, and that
the body be unto it, as the horse is to the horseman, that he makes
another controversy of (for the horseman, is the man alone, not the
horse and man both together: yet is it the man’s reference to the horse,
that gives him that name). Or whether the body only be the man,
having that respect unto the soul that the cup has to the drink (for it is
not the cup and the drink both that are called pocu/um in Latin, but the
cup only: yet only in respect that it contains the drink), or whether it
be both body and soul conjoined, and not several, that is called man,
and these two are but his parts, as two oxen are called a yoke (which
though it consist of one on this side, and another on that, yet call we
neither of them separately a yoke, but both combined together). Now
of those three positions he chooses the last, calling the essence, com-
posed of body and soul, man, and denying the appellation unto either
of them, being severally considered. And therefore (says he) man’s
beatitude must be included in the goods that belong jointly both to
body and soul: so that the prime gifts of nature are to be desired for
themselves, and that virtue which doctrine does gradually ingraft in a
good mind, is the most excellent good of all. Which virtue or method
of life, having received those first gifts of nature (which notwithstand-
ing had being, before that they had virtue) it now desires all things for
itself, and itself also: using all things together with itself, unto its
own pleasure and delightful fruition, more or less, making a liking use
of all, and yet if necessity require, rather refusing the smaller goods, —

Of the City of God. 215

for the attainment or preservation of the greater, than otherwise. But
evermore holding itself in higher respect than any other good whatso-
ever, mental or corporal : for it knows both the use of itself and of all other
good things that makes a man happy. But where it is wanting, be there
never so many good things, they are none of his that has them, because
he cannot give them their true natures by good application of them. That
man, therefore, alone is truly blessed, that can use virtue, and the other
bodily and mental goods which virtue cannot be without, all unto their
true end. If he can make good use of those things also that virtue
may easily want, he is the happier in that. But if he can make that use
of all things whatsoever, to turn them either to the good of the body or
of the mind, then is he the happiest man on earth: for life and virtue
are notall one. The wise man’s life only it is, that deserves that name,
for some kind of life may be wholly void of virtue, but no virtue can be
without life. And so likewise of memory, reason, and other qualities in
man: all these are before learning, it cannot be without them, no more
than virtue, which it does teach. But swiftness of foot, beauty of
face, strength of body, and such, may be all without virtue, and all
of them are good of themselves without virtue, yet is virtue desired
for itself nevertheless, and uses these good things as befits. Now
this blessed estate of life they hold to be sociable also, desiring the
neighbour’s good as much as their own, and wishing them in their own
respects, as well as itself: whether it be the wives and children, or
fellow-citizen, or mortal man whatsoever, nay, suppose it extend even
to the gods whom they hold the friends of wise men, and whom we
call by a more familiar name, angels. But of the ends of the good and
evil they make no question wherein only (they say) they differ from the
new Academics : nor care they what habit, Cynical, or whatsoever a man
bear, so he: aver their ends. Now of the three lives, contemplative,
active, and mixed, they choose the last. Thus (says Varro) the old
Academy taught: Antiochus master to him and Tully, being author
hereof, though Tully make him rather a Stoic than an old Academician
in most of his positions. But what is that to us? we are rather to look
how to judge of the matter, than how others judge of the men.

CHAPTER IV.

The Christian’s opinion of the chiefest good and evil, which the
philosophers held to be within themselves.

Ir you ask us now what the City of God says, first to this position of the
perfection of good and evil, it will answer you presently, Eternal life is
the perfection of good, and eternal death the consummation of evil, and
that the aim of our life must be to avoid this, and attain that other.
Therefore is it written, “‘The just shall live by faith.” For we see not
our greatest good, and therefore are to believe and hope for it, nor have

216 St Augustine.

we power to live accordingly, unless our belief and prayer obtain help of
Him who has given us that belief and hope that He will help us. But
such as found the perfection of felicity upon this life, placing it either
in the body, or in the mind, or in both: or, to speak more plainly,
either in pleasure or in virtue, or in pleasure and rest together, or in
virtue, or in both, or in nature’s first desires, or in virtue, or in both : fondly
and vainly are these men persuaded to find true happiness here. The
prophet laughs at them, saying, “The Lord knoweth the thoughts of men ”
(or, as St Paul has it, “‘ of the wise”) “‘ that they are vain.” For who can
discourse exactly of the miseries of this life? Tully, upon his daughter's
death, did what he could. But what could he do? in what person can the
first objects of nature be found without alteration? What, has not sorrow
and disquiet full power to disturb the pleasure and quiet of the wisest ?
So strength, beauty, health, vigour, and activity, are all subverted by their
contraries, by loss of limbs, deformity, sickness, faintness, and unwieldi-
ness. And what if a member fall into some tumour or other disease?
what if weakness of the back bend a man down to the ground, making
him near to a four-footed beast ? is not all the grace of his posture quite
gone? And then the first gifts of nature, whereof sense and reason are
the two first, because of the apprehension of truth, how easily are they
lost! how totally does deafness or blindness take away hearing and
sight! And then for the reason, how soon is it subverted by a frenzied
passion, a lethargy or so ! Oh, it is able to wring tears from our eyes to
see the actions of insane persons so wholly different, nay, so directly
contrary unto reason’s direction! What need I speak of the demoniacs,
whose understanding the devil wholly dulls, and uses all their powers of
soul and body at his own pleasure? And what wise man can fully
secure himself from these incursions? Again, how weak is our appre-
hension of truth in this life? when we read in the book of true Wisdom,
“ The corruptible body is heavy unto the soul, and the earthly mansion
- keepeth down the mind that is full of cares.”

And that same 6pu%, that violent motion unto action, which they reckon
for one of nature’s first positives in good men: is it not that that affects
those strange and horrible acts of madness when the reason and sense
are both besotted and darkened? Besides, virtue, which is not from
nature, but comes afterwards from industry, when it has got the highest
stand in humanity, what other work has it but a continual fight against
the inbred vices that are inherent in our own bosoms, not in others?
chiefly that orwppoouvn, that temperance which suppresses the lusts of
the flesh, and curbs them from carrying the mind away into mischief?
for that same is a vice when, as the apostle says, “the flesh lusteth
against the spirit;” and that contrary is a virtue, “when the spirit
lusteth against the flesh:” for they, says he, are contrary, so that ye
cannot do what you would. And what would we? what is our desire
in this perfection of God, but that the flesh should not lust against the

Of the City of God. ay

spirit, and that there were no vice in us against which the spirit should
lust? which, since we cannot attain in this life, would we never so fain,
let us by God’s grace endeavour this, that we do not subject our spirit
unto the concupiscence of our flesh, and se set our seal unto the bond
of sin with a free consent.

So that far be it from us ever to think that we have attained the true
happiness whilst we live here. Who is so wise but has now and then
divers fights against his own lusts? What is the office of prudence?
is it not to discern between things to be chosen, and things to be
refused, to the end that no error be incurred in either? This testifies
that there is evil in us, and that we are in evil. It teaches us that it is
evil to assent unto sin, and good to avoid it. But yet neither can
prudence nor temperance rid our lives of that evil which they forewarn us
of and arm us against. And what of justice, that gives every one his due ?
and the just order of nature is that the soul be under God, the flesh
under the soul, and both together under God. Is it not plain that this
is rather continually laboured after than truly attained in this life? for the
less that the soul does meditate on God, the less it serves Him, and the
more that the flesh lusts against the soul, the less command has the soul
over it; wherefore as long as we are objected unto this languor and
corruption, how dare we say we are safe? or (if not safe, much more)
blessed by the perfection of attained bliss? Now there is also fortitude,
another authentical testimony of human miseries endured with patience.

I wonder with what face the Stoics deny these to be evils, of which
they confess that if a wise man cannot, or ought not to endure them, he
may lawfully (nay he must needs) kill himself, and avoid this life. To
this height is their proud stupidity grown (building all their beatitude
upon this life), that if their wise man were blind, deaf, lame, and made
the very hospital of all agonies and anguish, which should lie so sore on
him that they should force him to be his own death, yet this life that is
environed with all those plagues, are not they ashamed to call blessed.
O sweet and blessed life, which it is requisite that death do conclude!
for if it be blessed why then keep it still? but if those evils make it
avoidable, what is become of the bliss? or what are these but evils, that
have such power to subvert the good of fortitude? making it not only
guilty of dejection, but of dotage in affirming that one and the same life
is blessed, and yet must be avoided: who is so blind that sees not that
if it be the one, it cannot possibly be the other? O but, say they, the
avoidance is caused by the effect of the overpressing infirmity : why may
they not as well bid adieu to obstinacy, and confess that it is wretched ?
was it patience that made Cato kill himself? no, he would not have done
it but that he took Czesar’s victory so impatiently : where was his fortitude
now ? gone, it yielded, and was so trodden down that it fled both light
and life, as blessed as it was. Was not his life then blessed when then
it was wretched? Why then are not they true evils that can make one’s

218 St Augustine.

life so wretched and so to be avoided? And therefore the Peripatetics
and old Academicians (whose sect Varro stands wholly for) did better in
calling these accidents, plainly evil. But they have one foul error to
hold his life that endures these evils, blessed, if he rid himself from
them by his own voluntary destruction. The pains and torments of the
body are evil, say they, and the greater the worse, which, to avoid, you
must willingly betake yourself to death, and leave this life: what life?
this, that is so encumbered with evils. What, is it then blessed among
so many evils that must be avoided, or call you it blessed, because you
may abandon these evils when you list, by death? what if some power
Divine should hold you from dying, and keep you continually in those
evils, then you would say this were a wretched life indeed! well, the
soon leaving of it makes not against the misery of it: because if it were
eternal, yourself would judge it miserable. It is not quit of misery
therefore because it is short, nor (much less) is it happiness in that the
misery is short. It must needs be a forcible evil, that has power to
make a man (nay and a wise man) to be his own executioner, it being
truly said by themselves, that it is as it were Nature’s first and most
forcible precept, that a man should have a dear respect of himself, and
therefore avoid the hand of death, by very natural instinct: and so be-
friend himself, that he should still desire to be a living creature, and
enjoy the conjunction of his soul and body. Mighty are the evils that
subdue this natural instinct, which is in all men to desire to avoid death,
and subduing it so far, that what was before abhorred, should now be
desired, and (rather than wanted) effected by a man’s own hand.
Mighty is the mischief that makes fortitude an homicide, if that can
be called fortitude which yields so to these evils, that it is fain to force
him to kill himself to avoid these inconveniences whom it has undertaken
to defend against all inconveniences.

Indeed a wise man is to endure death with patience, but that must
~ come ab externo, from another man’s hand and not from his own. But
these men teaching that he may do it himself, must needs confess
that the evils are intolerable which ought to force a man to such an
extreme inconvenience. The life therefore that is liable to such a
multitude of miseries can no way be called happy, if men to avoid this
infelicity be fain to give it place by killing of themselves, and being con-
vinced by the certainty of reason are fain in this their quest of beatitude,
to give place to the truth, and to discern, that the perfection of beati-
tude is not resident in this mortal life, when in man’s greatest gifts, the
greater help they afford him against anguish, dangers, and griefs, the
surer testimonies are they of human miseries. For if true virtue can be
in none in whom there is no true piety, then do they not promise any
people in whom they are, any assurance from. suffering of temporal sor-
rows. For true virtue may not dissemble, in professing what it cannot
perform: but it aims at this only, that man’s life which being in this

Of the City of God. 219

world, is perturbed with all these extremes of sorrows, should in the life
to come be made partaker both of safety and felicity. For how can that
man have felicity that wants safety? It is not therefore of the unwise,
intemperate, impatient, or unjust that St Paul speaks, saying, “ We
are saved by hope,” but of the son of true piety, and observers of the
real virtues: ‘“ Hope that is seen, is not hope, for how can a man hope
for that which he seeth? But if we hope for that we see not, we do
with patience wait for it.” Wherefore as we are saved, so are we
blessed by hope, and as we have no hold on our safety, no more have
we of our felicity, but by hope, patiently awaiting it; and being as yet
in a desert of thorny dangers, all which we must * constantly endure
until we come to the paradise of all ineffable delights, having then
passed all the perils of encumbrance. This security in the life to come,
is the beatitude we speak of which the philosophers not beholding will
not believe, but forge themselves an imaginary bliss here, wherein the
more their virtue assumes to itself, the falser it proves to the judgment
of all others.

CHAPTER V.

Of living sociably with our neighbour: how fit it ts, aud yet how subject
to crosses.

WE do worthily approve their enjoining a wise man to live in mutual
society: for how should our Celestial City (the nineteenth book
whereof we now have in hand) have ever come to its origin, develop-
ment, or perfection, unless the saints live all in sociable union? But yet
what is he that can recount all the miseries incident unto the societies
of mortals? Here what the comedian says, with a general applause:
“‘T married a wife. O what misery wanted I then! I begat children:
so there’s one care more.” And those inconveniences that Terence
pins on the back of love as injuries, enmities, war, and peace again, do
not all these lackey our mortality continually ? do not these foot some-
times into the friendliest affections? and does not all the world keep
these examples in continual renovation as war, I mean injuries and
enmities? And our peace is as uncertain, as we are ignorant of their
hearts with whom we hold it, and though we nigh know to-day what
they would do, to-morrow we shall not. Who should be greater friends
than those of one family? yet how many secret plots of malice lie
even amongst such, to expel security? their firmer peace becoming
fouler malice: and being reputed most loyal, whereas it was only most
craftily feigned: the far-spread contagion of this made Tully let this
saying run out with his tears: “Treason is never so close carried, as
when it lurks under the name of duty or affinity. An open foe is easily
watched: but this your secret serpent both breeds and strikes ere ever
you can discover it.” Wherefore that which the Holy Scripture says, “A

220 St Augustine.

man’s foes are those of his own household,” this we hear with great grief :
for though a man have fortitude to endure it, or prevention to avoid it,
yet if he be a good man, he must needs take great grief at the badness
of those so near him: be it that they have been accustomed unto this viper-
ous dissimulation of old, or have learnt it but of late. So, then, if a man’s
own private house afford him no shelter from these incursions, what
shall the city do, which, as it is larger, so is it fuller of brabbles, and
suits, and quarrels, and accusations, even if we grant the absence of sedi-
tions and civil contentions, which are too often present: and whereof
the cities are in continual danger, when they are in their safest estate ?

CHAPTER VI.
The error of human judgments in cases where truth ts not known.

AND how lamentable and miserable are those men’s judgments whom
the cities must perforce use, as magistrates, even in their most settled
peace, concerning other men! they judge them whose consciences they
cannot see, and therefore are often driven to wring forth the truth by
tormenting of innocent witnesses. And what say you when a man is
tortured in his own case, and tormented, even when it is a question
whether he be guilty or no? and though he be innocent, yet suffers
assured pains when they are not assured he is faulty. In most of these
cases the judge’s ignorance turns to the prisoner’s misery. Nay, which
is more lamentable, and deserves a sea of tears to wash it away; the
judge in torturing the accused, lest he should put him to death being
innocent, oftentimes through his wretched ignorance kills that party
being innocent, with torture, whom he had tortured to avoid the killing
of an innocent. For if (according unto their doctrine) he had rather
leave this life than endure those miseries, then he says presently that he
- did the thing whereof he is clear indeed. And being thereupon con-
demned and executed, still the judge cannot tell whether he were guilty
orno. He tortured him lest he should execute him guiltless, and by
that means killed him ere he knew that he was guilty. Now, in these
mists of mortal society, ought the judge to sit or no? Yes, he must
sit: he is bound to it by his place, which he holds it wickedness not
to discharge, and by the State’s command, which he must obey. But
he never holds it wickedness to torture guiltless witnesses in other men’s
causes, and when the tortures have overcome the patience of the inno-
. cent, and made them their own accusers, to put them to death as guilty,
whom they tortured but to try, being guiltless: nor to let many of them
die even upon the very rack itself, or by that means, if they do, escape
the hangman. Again, what do you say to this, that some bringing a just
accusation against this man or that for the good of the State, the accused
endures all the tortures without confession, and so the innocent plaintiffs

Of the City of God. 221

being not able to prove their plea, are by the judge’s ignorance cast
and condemned. These now, and many more than these, the judge
holds no sins, because his will is not assenting unto them, but his service
to the State compels him, and his ignorance of hurt it is that makes
him do it, not any will to hurt. This, now, is misery in a man: if it be
not malice in a wise man, is it the troubles of his place and of ignorance
that cause those effects, and does he not think he is not well enough in
being free from accusation, but he must needs sit in beatitude? How
much more wisdom and discretion would he show in acknowledging
his mortality in those troubles, and in detesting this misery in himself,
crying out unto God (if he be wise) with the psalmist : “ Lord, take me
out of all my troubles.”

CHAPTER VII.

Difference of language, an impediment to human society. The miseries of
the justest wars.

Arter the city, follows the whole world, wherein the third kind of
human society is resident, the first being in the house, and the second
in the city. Now the world is as a flood of waters, the greater, the more
dangerous: and first of all, difference of language divides man from
man. For if two meet, who perchance light upon some accident cray-
ing their abiding together, and conference, if neither of them can under-
stand the other, you may sooner make two brute beasts, of two several
kinds, sociable to one another than these two men. For when they
would commune together, their tongues do not agree, which being so,
all the other helps of nature are nothing: so that a man had rather be
with his own dog, than with another man of a strange language. But
the great western Babylon endeavours to communicate her language to
all the lands she has subdued, to procure a fuller society, and a greater
abundance of interpreters on both sides. It is true, but how many
lives has this cost! and suppose that done, the worst is not past: for
although she never wanted stranger nations against whom to lead her
forces, yet this large extension of her empire procured greater wars than
those, named civil and confederate wars, and these were they that
troubled the souls of mankind both in their heat, with desire to see them
extinct, and in their pacification, with fear to see them renewed. If I
should stop to recite the massacres, and the extreme effects hereof, as
I might (though I cannot do it as I should) the discourse would be in-
finite. Yea but a wise man, say they, will wage none but just war. He
will not! As if the very remembrance that himself is man, ought not .
to procure his greater sorrow in that he has cause of just war, and must
needs wage them, which if they were not just, were not for him to deal
in, so that a wise man should never have war; for it is the other men’s
wickedness that works his cause just that he ought to deplore, whether
ever it produce wars or not: wherefore he that does but consider with

222 St Augustine,

compassion all those extremes of sorrow and bloodshed, must needs say
that this isa mystery, but he that endures them without a sorrowful
emotion, or thought thereof, is far more wretched to imagine he has the
bliss of a god, when he has lost the natural feeling of a man.

CHAPTER VIII.

That true friendship cannot be secure, amongst the incessant perils of this
present life.

Bur admit that a man be not so grossly deceived (as many in this
wretched life are) as to take his foe for his friend, nor contrariwise, his
friend for his foe: what comfort have we then remaining in this vale of
mortal miseries, but the unfeigned faith and affection of sure friends?
whom the more they are, or the further off us, the more we fear, lest
they be endamaged by some of these infinite casualties attending on
all men’s fortunes. We stand not only in fear to see them afflicted by
famine, war, sickness, imprisonment, or so, but our far greater fear is,
lest they should fall away through treachery, malice, or deprivation.
And when this comes to pass, and we hear of it (as the more friends
we have, and the farther off withal, the likelier is such news to be
brought us), then who can decipher our sorrows but he that has felt the
like? we had rather hear of their death, though that we could not hear
of either, except with grief. For seeing we enjoyed the comfort of their
friendships in their life, how can we but be touched with sorrowful emotions
at their death? he that forbids us that, may as well forbid all conference
of friend and friend, all social courtesy, nay, even all human passion, and
thrust them all out of man’s conversation: or else prescribe their uses
no pleasurable ends. But as that is impossible, so is it likewise for us
not to bewail him dead whom we loved being alive. For the sorrow
thereof is as a wound, or ulcer in our heart, unto which bewailments do
serve in the stead of fomentations, and plasters. For though that the
. sounder one’s understanding be, the sooner this cure is effected, yet it
proves not but that there is a malady that requires one application or
other. Therefore in all our bewailing more or less, of the deaths of our
dearest friends or companions, we do yet reserve this love to them, that
we had rather have them dead in body, than in soul, and had rather
have them fall in essence, than in manners, for the last is the most
dangerous infection upon earth, and therefore it was written, “Is not
man’s life a temptation upon earth?” Whereupon our Saviour said:
“Woe be to the world because of offences ;” and again: ‘“ Because
iniquity shall be increased, the love of many shall wax cold.” This
makes us give thanks for the death of our good friends, and though it
make us sad a while, yet it gives us more assurance of comfort ever
after, because they have now escaped all those mischiefs which oftentimes
seize upon the best, either oppressing, or perverting them, endangering
them howsoever.

Of the City of God. 223

CHAPTER IX.

The friendship of holy angels with men: undiscernible in this life, by
reason of the devils, whom all the heathen took to be good powers, and
gave them divine honours.

Now the society of angels with men (those whom the philosophers called
the gods’ guardians, Lares, and a number more names), they set in the
fourth place, coming as it were from earth to the whole universe, and
here including heaven. Now for those friends (the angels), we need not
fear to be affected with sorrow for any death, or depravation of theirs,
they are impassible. But this friendship between them and us is not
visibly apparent as that of man’s is: which adds unto our terrestrial
misery. And again, the devil, as we read, often transforms himself
into an angel of light to tempt men, some for their instruction, and some
for their ruin: and here is need of the great mercy of God, lest when
we think we have the love and fellowship of good angels, they prove at
length pernicious devils, feigned friends, and subtle foes, as great in power
as in deceit. And where is this great mercy of God so needed except
in this worldly misery, which is so enveloped in ignorance, and subject to
be deluded? As for the philosophers of the reprobate city, who said
they had gods to their friends, most sure it was they had devils indeed
whom they took for deities: all the whole state wherein they lived is
the devil’s monarchy, and shall have the like reward with his, unto all
eternity. For their sacrifices, or rather sacrileges, wherewith they were
honoured, and the obscene plays which they themselves exacted, were
manifest testimonies of their diabolical natures.

CHAPTER X.

The reward that the saints are to receive after the passing of this
world’s afflictions.

Yza, the holy and faithful servants of the true God are in danger of the
devil’s manifold ambushes : for as long as they live in this frail and foul-
browed world, they must be so, and it is for their good, making them
more attentive in the quest of that security where their peace is without
end, and without want. There shall the Creator bestow all the gifts of
nature upon them, and give them not only as good things, but as eternal
benefits, not only to the soul, by reforming it with wisdom, but also to the
body, by restoring it in the resurrection. There the virtues shall not have
any more conflicts with the vices, but shall rest with the victory of eter-
nal peace, which none shall ever disturb. For it is the final beatitude,
having now attained a consummation to all eternity. We are said to be
happy here on earth when we have that little peace that goodness can
afford us: but compare this happiness with that other, and this shall be

224 St Augustine.

held but plain misery. Therefore if we live well upon earth, our virtue
uses the benefits of the transitory peace unto good ends, if we have it:
if not, yet still our virtue uses the evils that the want thereof produces,
unto a good end also. But then is our virtue in full power and perfec-
tion when it refers itself, and all the good effects it can give being
unto either upon good or evil causes, unto that only end, wherein our
peace shall have no end, nor anything superior unto it in goodness or
perfection.

CHAPTER XI.

The beatitude of eternal peace, and that true perfection wherein the
saints are installed.

WE may therefore say that peace is our final good, as we said of life
eternal: because the psalm says unto that city whereof we write this
laborious work: “ Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem, praise thy Lord,
O Sion: for He hath made fast the bars of thy gates, and blessed thy
children within thee; He giveth peace in thy borders.” When the
bars of the gates are fast, as none can come in, so none can go out.
And therefore this peace which we call final, is the borders and bounds
of this city: for the mystical name hereof, Jerusalem, signifies, ‘a vision
of peace:’ but because the name of peace is ordinary in this world
where eternity is not resident, therefore we choose rather to call the
bound wherein the chief good of this city lies, ‘life eternal,’ rather
than ‘ peace.’ Of which end the apostle says, ‘‘ Now being freed from sin,
and made servants to God, ye have your fruit in holiness, and the end,
everlasting life.” But on the other side, because such as are ignorant
in the Scriptures may take this “ everlasting life” in an ill sense, for the life
of the wicked, which is eternally evil, either, as some philosophers held,
because the soul cannot die, or, as our faith teaches, because torments
cannot cease: yet would not the wicked feel them eternally, unless
they have also their eternal life: therefore the main end of this city’s
aim is, either to be called, Eternity in peace, or Peace in eternity, and thus
it is plain to all. For the good of peace is generally the greatest wish of the
world, and the most welcome when it comes. Whereof I think we may
take leave of our reader, to have a word or two more, both because of the
city’s end, whereof we now speak, and of the sweetness of peace, which
all men do love.

CHAPTER XII.

That the bloodiest war's chief aim is peace: the desive of which ts
natural in man.

Wuo will not confess this with me, who marks man’s affairs, and the
general form of nature? For joy and peace are desired alike of all men.

Of the City of God. 225

The warrior would but conquer: war’s aim is nothing but glorious peace :
what is victory but a suppression of resistants, which being done, peace
follows? So that peace is war’s purpose, the scope of all military dis-
cipline, and the limit at which all just contentions level. All men seek
peace by war, but none seek war by peace. For they that perturb the
peace they live in, do it not for hate of it, but to shew their power in
alteration of it. They would not disannul it, but they would have it as
they like ; and though they break into seditions from the rest, yet must
they hold a peaceful force with their fellows that are engaged with them,
or else they shall never effect what they intend. Even the thieves
themselves that molest all the world besides them, are at peace amongst
themselves. Admit one be so strong, or subtle that he will have no
fellow, but plays all his parts of roguery alone, yet such as he can neither
cut off, nor care to make known his deeds unto, with those he must
needs hold a kind of peace. And at home, with his wife and family,
there must he needs observe quietness, and questionless delights in their
obedience unto him, which if they fail in, he chases, and chides and
strikes, setting all in order by force if need be, or by cruelty : which he
sees he cannot do, unless all the rest be subjected under one head,
which is himself. And might he have the sway of a city, or province in
such sort as he has that of his house, he would put off his thievish nature,
and put on a king’s, albeit his covetousness and malice remained un-
changed. Thus then you see that all men desire to have peace with
such as they would have live according to their liking. For those
against whom they wage war, they would make their own if they could,
and if they conquer them they give them such laws as they like. But
let us imagine some such insociable fellow as the poet’s fable records,
calling him half-man, for his inhuman barbarism.

Now he although his kingdom lay in a lightless cave, and his villainies
so rare that they gave him that great name of Cacus, which is, evil,
though his wife never had good word of him, he never played with his
children, nor ruled them in their manlier age, never spoke with friend,
nor so much as with his father Vulcan (than whom he was far more
happy in that he begat no such monster as Vulcan had in begetting him)
though he never gave to any, but robbed and reaved all that he could
grip from all manner of persons, yea and the persons themselves, yet in
that horrid dungeon of his, whose floor and walls were always dank with
the blood of new slaughters, he desired nothing but to rest in peace
therein, without molestation. He desired also to be at peace with him-
self, and what he had, he enjoyed, he ruled over his own body, and to
satisfy his own hungry nature that menaced the separation of soul and
body, he fell to his robberies with celerity, and though he were barbar-
ous and bloody, yet in all that, he had a care to provide for his lite and
safety : and therefore if he would have had that peace with others, which
he had in the cave with himself alone, he would neither have been called

II, P

226 St Augustine.

halfman nor monster. But if it were his horrible shape and breathing
of fire that made men avoid him, then was it not will, but necessity that
made him live in that cave and play the thief for his living. But there
was no such man, or if there were, he was not such as the poets feign
him. For unless they had mightily belied Cacus, they should not suffi-
ciently have commended Hercules. But, as I said, it is likely that there
was no such man, no more than is truth in many other of their fictions :
for the very wild beasts (part of whose brutishness they place in him), do
preserve a peace each with other in their kind, begetting, breeding, and
living together amongst themselves, being otherwise the insociable births
of the deserts: I speak not here of sheep, deer, pigeons, starlings or bees,
but of lions, foxes, eagles, and owls. For what tiger is there that does
not purr over her young ones, and fawn upon them in their tenderness?
What kite is there, though he fly solitarily about for his prey, but will
seek his female, build his nest, sit his eggs, feed his young, and assist
his mate in her motherly duty, all that in him lies? Far stronger are
the bands that bind man unto society, and peace with all that are peace-
able: the worst men of all do fight for their fellows’ quietness, and
would (if it lay in their power) reduce all into a distinct form of state,
drawn by themselves, whereof they would be the heads, which could
never be, but by acoherence either through fear or love. For herein is per-
yerse pride an imitator of the goodness of God, having equality of others
with itself under Him, and laying a yoke of obedience upon its fellows,
under itself, instead of Him: thus hates it the just peace of God, and
builds an unjust one for itself. Yet can it not but love peace, for no
vice however unnatural, can pull nature up by the roots. But he that
can discern between good and bad, and between order and confusion,
may soon distinguish the godly peace from the wicked. Now that per-
verse confusion must be reformed by the better disposing of the thing
wherein it is, if it be at all, as, for example : hang a man up with his head
downwards, all his posture is confounded, that which should be lowest,
having the highest place, and so contrary this confusion disturbs the
flesh, and is troublesome to it. But it is the soul’s peace with the body
that causes the feeling of that disturbance. Now if the soul leave the
body by the means of those troubles, yet as long as the body’s form re-
mains it has a certain peace with itself, and in the very manner of
hanging, shews that it desires to be placed in the peace of nature, the
very weight, seeming to demand a place for rest, and though life be
gone, yet very nature sways it unto that order wherein she placed it.
For if the dead body be preserved from putrefaction by unguents, and
embalmings, yet the peace of nature is kept, for the body’s weight is
applied thereby to an earthly sympathising site, and convenient place
for it to rest in. But if it be not embalmed, but left to nature’s dissolv-
ing, it is so long altered by ill-tasting vapours, until each part be wholly
reduced to the particular natures of the elements, yet is not a tittle of the

Of the City of God. 227

- Creator’s all-disposing law controlled: for if there grow out of this
carcase, a many more living creatures, each body of these, serves the
quantity of life that is in it, according to the same law of creation. And
if that be devoured up, by other ravenous beasts or birds, it shall
follow the ordinance of the same law, disposing all things congruently,
into what form of nature soever it be changed.

CHAPTER XIII.

Of that universal peace which no perturbances can seclude from the law of
naiure, God's just judgments disposing of every one according to his
proper desert.

THE body’s peace therefore is an orderly disposal of the parts thereof:

the unreasonable soul’s, a good temperature of the appetites thereof: the

reasonable soul’s, a true harmony between the knowledge, and the per-
formance. That of body and soul alike, a temperate and undiseased
habit of nature in the whole creature. The peace of mortal man with
immortal God, is an orderly obedience unto His eternal law, performed

in faith. Peace of man and man, is a mutual concord: peace of a

_ family, an orderly rule and subjection amongst the parts thereof: peace

of a city, an orderly command, and obedience amongst the citizens:

peace of God’s City a most orderly coherence in God, and fruition of

God: peace of all things, is a well disposed order. For order, is a good

disposition of discrepant parts, each in the fittest place, and therefore

the miserable (as they are miserable), are out of order, wanting that
peaceable and unperturbed state which order exacts. But because their
own merits have incurred this misery, therefore even herein they are
imposed in a certain set order howsoever. Being not conjoined with
the blessed, but severed from them by the law of order, and being
exposed to miseries, yet these are adapted unto the places wherein they
are resident, and so are digested into some kind of methodical form, and
consequently into some peaceful order. But this is their misery, that
although that some little security wherein they live, may exempt them from
present sorrows, yet are they not in that state which secludes sorrow for
ever, and affords eternal security. And their misery is far greater if they
want the peace of nature: and when they are offended, the part that
grieves is the first disturber of their peace: for that which is neither
offended, nor dissolved, preserves the peace of nature still. So then as
one may possibly live without grief, but cannot possibly grieve unless
he live: so may there be peace without any war or contention: but
contention cannot be without some peace (not as it is contention, but),
because the contenders do suffer and perform diverse things herein
according to nature’s prescript, which things could not consist, had they
not some peaceful order amongst them. So that there may be a nature

(you see) where no evil may have inherence, but to find a nature utterly

void of goodness, is utterly impossible. For the very nature of the

228 St Augustine.

devils (considered as nature) is most excellent, but their own voluntary
perverseness depraved it. The devil abode not in the truth, yet escaped
he not the sentence of the truth: for he transgressed the peaceful law of
order, yet could not avoid the powerful hand of the Orderer.

The good which God had bestowed on his nature, cleared him not
from God’s heavy judgment which allotted him to punishment. Yet
does not God herein punish the good which Himself created, but the
evil which the devil committed : nor did He take away his whole nature
from him, but left him part, whereby to bewail the loss of the rest:
which lamentation, testifies both what he had and what he has: for had
he not some good left, he could not lament for what he had lost. For
his guilt is the greater that having lost all his uprightness, should rejoice
at the loss thereof. And he that is sick, if it benefit him nothing yet
grieves at the loss of his health. For uprightness and health being both
good in themselves, it behoves the losers of them to mourn, and not to re-
joice, unless this loss be repaired with better recompence, as uprightness
of mind is better than health of body: but far more reason has the sinner
to lament in his suffering than to rejoice in his transgression. Therefore
even as to rejoice at the loss of goodness in sinning, argues a depraved
will: so likewise lament for the same loss, in suffering, proves a good
nature. For he that bewails the loss of his natural peace, has his light
from the remainder of that peace, which are left in him, keeping his
nature and him in concord.

And in the last judgment, it is but reasonable that the wicked should
deplore the loss of their natural goods, and feel God’s hand justly heavy
in depriving them of them, whom they scornfully respected not in the
bestowing them upon them. Wherefore the high God, nature’s wisest
Creator, and most just Disposer, the Parent of the world’s fairest wonder
(mankind) bestowed divers good things upon him, which serve for this life
only, as the worldly and temporal peace, kept by honest coherence and
society: together with all the adjuncts of this peace, as the visible light,
the spirable air; the potable water; and all the other necessaries of
meat, drink, and clothing: but with this condition, that he that shall use
them in their due manner, and reference unto human peace, shall be
rewarded with gifts of far greater moment, namely with the peace of
immortality, and with unshaded glory, and full fruition of God, and his
brother, in the same God: but he that uses them amiss, shall neither
partake of the former nor the latter.

CHAPTER XIV.

Of the law of Heaven and Earth which sways human society by counsel
and unto which counsel human society is obedient.

ALL temporal things are referred unto the benefit of the peace which is
resident in the terrestrial city, by the members thereof: and unto the

Of the City of God. 229

use of the eternal peace, by the citizens of the Heavenly society.
Wherefore if we wanted reason, we should desire only an orderly state
of body, and a good temperature of desires: nothing but fleshly ease,
and fulness of pleasure. For the peace of the body augments the quiet
of the soul: and if it be awanting, it procures a disturbance even in
brute beasts, because the emotions have not their true temperature.
Now both these combined add unto the peace of soul and body both,
that is, unto the healthful order of life. For as all creatures shew how
they desire their bodies’ peace, in avoiding the causes of their hurt: and
their souls’, in following their appetites when need requires: so in flying
of death ; they make it as apparent how much they set by their peace of
soul and body. But man having a reasonable soul, subjects all his
actions common to animals, unto the peace of that, to work so both in his
contemplation and action, that there may be a true consonance between
them both, and this we call the peace of the reasonable soul. To this
end he is to avoid molestation by grief, disturbance by desire, and dis-
solution by death, and to aim at profitable knowledge, whereunto his
actions may be conformable. But lest his own infirmity, through the
much desire to know, should draw him into any pestilent inconvenience
of error, he must have a divine instruction, to whose directions and
assistance, he is to assent with firm and free obedience. And because
that during this life, ‘‘ He is absent from the Lord, he walketh by faith,
and not by sight,” and therefore he refers all his peace of body, of soul,
and of both, unto that peace which mortal man has with immortal
God : to live in an orderly obedience under His eternal law, by faith.
Now God, our good Master, teaching us in the two great command-
ments the love of Him, and the love of our neighbour, to love three
things, God, our neighbour, and ourselves, and seeing he that loves God,
offends not in loving himself: it follows that he ought to counsel his
neighbour to love God, and to provide for him in the love of God, sure
he is commanded to love him, as his own self. So must he do for his
wife, children, family, and all men besides: and wish likewise that his
neighbour would do as much for him, in his need: thus shall he be

settled in peace and orderly concord with all the world. The order

whereof is, first, to do no man hurt, and secondly, to help all that he
can. So that his own have the first place in his care, and those, his
place and order in human society affords him more conveniency to
benefit. Whereupon St Paul says, ‘ He that provideth not for his own,
and, namely, for them that be of his household, denieth the faith, and is
worse than an infidel.” For this is the foundation of domestic peace,
which is, an orderly rule, and subjection in the parts of the family,

-wherein the provisors are the commanders, as the husband over his

wife ; parents over their children, and masters over their servants: and
they that are provided for, obey, as the wives do their husbands, children
their parents, and servants their masters. But in the family of the

230 St Augustine.

faithful man, the heavenly pilgrim, there the commanders are indeed the
servants of those they seem to command: ruling not in ambition, but
being bound by careful duty : not in proud sovereignty, but in nourishing

pity.
CHAPTER XV.

Nature's freedom, and bondage, caused by sin: in which man ts a slave to
to his own passions, though he be not bondman to any one besides.

Tuus has nature’s order prescribed, and man by God was thus created.
“Let them rule,” saith He, “over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of
the air, and over every thing that creepeth upon the earth.” He made
him reasonable, and iord only over the unreasonable, not over man, but
over beasts. Whereupon the first holy men were rather shepherds than
kings, God shewing herein what both the order of the creation desired,
and what the merit of sin exacted. For justly was the burden of
servitude laid upon the back of transgression. And therefore in all the
Scriptures we never read the word servant, until such time as that just
man Noah laid it as a curse upon his offending son. So that it was
guilt, and not nature that gave original unto that name. The Latin
word servus, had the first derivation from hence: those that were taken
in the wars, being in the hands of the conquerors to massacre or to
preserve, if they saved them, then were they called servi, of servo, ‘to
save.’ Nor was this effected beyond the desert of sin. For in the
justest war, the sin upon one side causes it ; and if the victory fall to
the wicked (as sometimes it may) it is God’s decree to humble the con-
quered, either reforming their sins herein, or punishing them. Witness
that holy man of God, Daniel, who, being in captivity, confessed unto
his Creator that his sins, and the sins of the people were the real causes
of that captivity.

Sin therefore is the mother of servitude, and first cause of man’s
subjection to man: which notwithstanding comes not to pass but by the
direction of the highest, in whom is no injustice, and who alone knows
best how to proportionate his punishment unto man’s offences: and he
himself says: “ Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin,” and
therefore many religious Christians are servants unto wicked masters,
yet not unto freemen, for that which a man is addicted unto, the same
is he slave unto. And it is a happier servitude to serve man than lust:
for lust (to omit all the other passions) practises extreme tyranny upon the
hearts of those that serve it, be it lust after sovereignty or fleshly lust.
But in the peaceful orders of states, wherein one man is under another,
as humility does benefit the servant, so does pride endamage the superior.
But take a man as God created him at first, and so he is neither slave
to man nor to sin. But penal servitude had the institution from that
law which commands the conservation, and forbids the disturbance of

Of the City of God. 231

nature’s order: for if that law had not first been transgressed, penal
servitude had never been enjoined.

Therefore the apostle warns servants to obey their masters and to
serve them with cheerfulness, and good will: to the end that if they
cannot be made free by their masters, they make their servitude a
freedom to themselves, by serving them, not in deceitful fear, but in
faithful love, until iniquity be overpassed, and all man’s power and
principality disannulled, and God only be all in all.

CHAPTER XVI.
Of the just law of sovereignty.

WHEREFORE although our righteous forefathers had servants in their
families, and according to their temporal estates, made a distinction
between their servants and their children, yet in matter of religion (the
fountain whence all eternal good flows), they provided for all their
household with an equal respect unto each member thereof. This,
nature’s order prescribed, and hence came the name of, “The Father of
the family,” a name which even the worst masters love to be called by.
But such as merit that name truly, do care that all their families should
continue in the service of God, as if they were all their own children,
desiring that they should all be placed in the household of heaven,
where command is wholly unnecessary, because then they are past their
charge, having attained immortality, which until they be installed in,
the masters are to endure more labour in their government, than the
servants in their service. If any be disobedient, and offend this just
peace, he is, forthwith to be corrected, with strokes, or some other con-
venient punishment, whereby he may be reingraffed into the peaceful
stock from whence his disobedience has torn him. For as it is no
good turn to help a man unto a smaller good by the loss of a greater :
no more is it the part of innocence by pardoning a small offence, to let
it grow unto a fouler. It is the duty of an innocent to hurt no man,
but, withal, to curb sin in all he can, and to correct sin in whom he
can, that the sinner’s correction may be profitable to himself, and his
example a terror unto others. Every family then being part of the city,
every beginning having relation unto some end, and every part tending
to the integrity of the whole, it follows apparently, that the family s
peace adheres unto the city’s, that is, the orderly command, and obedi-
ence in the family, has real reference to the orderly rule and subjection
in the city. So that “the father of the family” may fetch his instruc-
tions from the city’s government, whereby he may proportionate the
peace of his private estate, by that of the common,

232 St Augustine,

CHAPTER XVII.

The grounds of the concord and discord between the cities of heaven
and earth,

But they that live not according to faith, angle for all their peace in the
sea of temporal profits: whereas the righteous live in full expectation
of the glories to come, using the occurrences of this world, but as
pilgrims, not to abandon their course towards God for mortal respects,
but thereby to assist the infirmity of the corruptible flesh, and make it
more able to encounter with toil and trouble. Wherefore the neces-
saries of this life are common, both to the faithful and the infidel, and
to both their families: but the ends of their two usages thereof are far
different.

The_ faithless, “ worldly city” aims at earthly peace, and settles the
self therein, only to have an uniformity of the citizens’ wills in matters
only pertaining to mortality. And the “ Heavenly City,” or rather that
part thereof, which is as yet a pilgrim on earth and lives by faith, uses
this peace also: as it should, it leaves this mortal life, wherein such a
peace is requisite, and therefore lives (while it is here on earth) as if it
were in captivity, and having received the promise of redemption, and
divers spiritual gifts as seals thereof, it willingly obeys such laws of the
“temporal city” as order the things pertaining to the sustenance of this
mortal life, to the end that both the cities might observe a peace in such
things as are pertinent hereunto. But because that the « earthly city”
has some members whom the Holy Scriptures utterly disallow, and who
standing either too well affected to the devils, or being deluded by them,
believed that each thing had a peculiar deity over it, and belonged to
the charge of a several god: as the body to one, the soul to another,
and in the body itself the head to one, the neck to another, and so of
every member: as likewise of the soul, one had the wit, another the
learning, a third the wrath, a fourth the desire: as also in other neces-
" saries or accidents belonging to man’s life, the cattle, the corn, the wine,
the oil, the woods, the monies, the navigation, the wars, the marriages,
the generations, each being a several charge unto a particular power,
whereas the citizens of the “Heavenly State ” acknowledged but one
only God, to whom that worship, which is called Aarpeia was peculiarly
and solely due ; hence came it that the “two hierarchies” could not be
combined in one religion, but must needs dissent herein, so that the good
part was fain to bear the pride and persecution of the bad, had not their
own multitude sometimes, and the providence of God continually stood
for their protection.

This “celestial society” while it is here on earth, increases itself out
of all languages, never respecting the temporal laws that are made
against so good and religious a practice : yet not breaking, but observing
their diversity in divers nations, all which do tend unto the preservation

Of the City of God. 233

of earthly peace, if they oppose not the adoration of one only God. So
that you see, the “ Heavenly City” observes and respects this temporal
peace here on earth, and the coherence of men’s wills in honest morality,
as far as it may with a safe conscience; yea, and so far desires it, mak-
ing use of it for the attainment of the peace eternal: which is so truly
worthy of that name, as that the orderly and uniform combination of
men in the fruition of God, and of one another in God, is to be accounted
the reasonable creature’s only peace, which being once attained, mortality
is banished, and life then is the true life indeed, nor is the carnal body
any more an encumbrance to the soul, by corruptibility, but is now
become spiritual, perfected, and entirely subject unto the sovereignty
of the will.

This peace is that unto which the pilgrim in faith refers the other
which he has here in his pilgrimage, and then lives he according to faith,
when all that he does for the obtaining hereof is by himself referred
unto God, and his neighbour withal, because being a citizen, he must
not be all for himself, but sociable in his life and actions.

CHAPTER XVIII.

That the doubtful doctrine of the new Academy opposes the constancy of
Christianity.

As for the new Academicians, whom Varro avouches to hold no cer-
tainty but this, “ That all things are uncertain:” the Church of God
detests these doubts as madness, having a most certain knowledge of
the things it apprehends, although but in small quantity, because of the
corruptible body which is a burden to the soul, and because, as the
apostle says, ‘“ We know (but) in part.” Besides it believes the evidence
of the senses in objects, of which the mind judges by the sensitive organs,
though he would be in a gross error that trusts entirely in them :_it be-
lieves also the holy canonical Scriptures, both old and new, from which
the just man has his faith, by which he lives, and wherein we all walk
without doubt, as long as we are in our pilgrimage, and personally absent
from God: and this faith being kept firm, we may lawfully doubt all
such other things as are not manifested unto us either by sense, reason,
Scripture, nor testimony of grounded authority.

CHAPTER XIX.
Of the dress and habits belonging to a Christian.

Ir is nothing to the City of God what attire the citizens wear, or what
rules they observe, as long as they contradict not God’s holy precepts,
but each one keep the faith, the true path to salvation: and therefore
when a Philosopher becomes a Christian, they never make him alter his
habit nor his manners, which are no hindrance to his religion, but his

234 St Augustine.

false opinions. They respect not Varro’s distinction of the Cynics, as
long as they forbear unclean and intemperate actions. But as conceru-
ing the three kinds of life, active, contemplative, and the mean between
both, although one may keep the faith in any of those courses, yet there
is a difference between the love of the truth and the duties of charity. One
may not be so given to contemplation, that he neglect the good of his
neighbour: nor so far in love with action that he forget Divine specula-
tion. In contemplation one may not seek for idleness, but for truth:
to benefit himself by the knowledge thereof, and not to grudge to im-
part it unto others. In action one may not aim at highness or honour,
because ‘“‘all under the sun is mere vanity:” but to perform the work
of a superior unto the true end, that is, unto the benefit and salvation
of the subject, as we said before, and this made the apostle say, “ If
any man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work :” what
this office was, he explains not; it is an office of labour, and not of
honour. The Greek word signifies that he that is herein installed, is to
watch over his people that are under him: Episcopus, a bishop, comes
of éx/, which is, ‘ over,’ and oxomos, which is, ‘a watching,’ or ‘an attend-
ance :’ so that we may very well translate ex/oxoros, ‘a superintendent,’
to shew that he is no true bishop, who desires rather to be lordly himself,
than profitable unto others. No man therefore is forbidden to proceed
in a laudable form of contemplation. But to affect sovereignty, though
the people must be governed, and though the place be well discharged,
yet notwithstanding is liable to be deemed unfitting. Wherefore the
love of truth requires a holy retiredness: and the necessity of charity, a
just employment, which if it be not imposed upon us, we ought not to
seek it, but betake ourselves wholly to the holy search after truth : but if
we be called forth unto a place, the law and need of charity binds us to
undertake it. Yet may we not for all this, give over our first resolution,
lest we lose the sweetness of that, and be surcharged with the weight of
~ the other.

CHAPTER XX.
Lope, the bliss of the heavenly citizens, during this life.

THEN therefore is the good of the “holy society” perfect, when their
peace is established in eternity: not running any more in succession as
mortal men do in life and death, one to another: but confirmed unto
them together with their immortality for ever, without touch of the least
imperfection. What man is he that would not account such an estate most
happy, or comparing it with that which man has here upon earth, would
not avouch this latter to be most miserable, were it never so well fraught
with temporal conveniences? yet he that has the latter in possession,
and applies it all unto the use of his hope’s firm and faithful object; the
former may not unfitly be called happy already, but that is rather in his

=
a

Of the City of God. 235

expectation of the first, than in his fruition of the latter. For this pos-
session without the other hope, is a false beatitude, and a most true
misery. For herein is no use of the mind’s truest good, because there
wants the true wisdom, which in the prudent discretion, resolute per-
formance, temperate restraint, and just distribution of these things,
should refer his intent in all these, unto that end, where God shall be
all in all, where eternity shall be firm, and peace most perfect and
absolute.

CHAPTER XXI.

Whether the City of Rome had ever a true commonwealth, according to
Scipio's definition of a common-wealth, in Tully.

Now it is time to perform a promise which I passed in the second book
of this work : and that was, to shew that Rome never had a true common-
wealth as Scipio defines one in Tully’s book De Republicd. His definition
was: a commonwealth is the estate of the people, Respublica est res
populi. If this be true, Rome never had any, for it never had an estate
of the people, which he defines the commonwealth by: for, he defines
the people to be a multitude, united in one consent of law and profit :
what he means by a consent of law, he shews himself: and shews there-
by that a state cannot stand without justice : so that where true justice is
wanting, there can be no law. For what law does, justice does, and what
is done unjustly, is done unlawfully. For we may not imagine men’s
unjust decrees to be laws: all men defining law to arise out of the foun-
tain of justice ; and that that same unjust assertion of some, is utterly
false: “That is law which is profitable unto the greatest.” So then,
where justice is not, there can be no society united in one consent of
law, therefore no people, according to Scipio’s definitions in Tully. If
no people, then no estate of the people, but rather of a confused multi-
tude, unworthy of a people’s name. If then the commonwealth be an
estate of the people, and that they be no people that are not united in
one consent of law: nor that a law, which is not grounded upon justice:
then it must needs follow, that where no justice is, there no commonwealth
is. Now then ad propositum : justice is a virtue distributing unto every-
one his due. What justice is that then, that takes man from the true God,
and gives him unto the condemned fiends? is this distribution of due?
is he that takes away thy possessions, and gives them to one that has no
claim to them, guilty of injustice, and is not he so likewise, that takes
himself away from his Lord God, and gives himself to the service of the
devil? There are wise and powerful disputations in those books, De Re-
publica, for justice against injustice. Wherein, it having first been argued
for injustice, against justice, and averred that a state could not stand
without injustice ; and this brought as a principal confirmation hereof,
that it is injustice for man to rule over man, and yet if the city whose

236 St Augustine.

dominion is so large, should not observe this form of injustice, she
could never keep the provinces under. Unto this it was answered
on the behalf of justice, that this was a just course, it being profitable
for such to serve, and for their good to wit, when the power to do hurt
is taken from the wicked, they will carry themselves better being curbed,
because they carried themselves so badly before they were curbed. To
confirm this answer this notable example was alleged, as being fetched
from nature itself: “If it were unjust to rule, why does God rule over
man, the soul over the body, reason over lust, and all the mind’s
other vicious affections?” This example teaches plain that it is good for
some to serve in particular, and it is good for all to serve God in
general. And the mind serving God, is lawful Lord over the body: so
is reason being subject unto God, over the lusts and other vices.
Wherefore if man serve not God, what justice can be thought to be in
Him? seeing that if he serve not Him the soul has neither lawful
sovereignty over the body, nor the reason over the affections: now if this
justice cannot be found in one man, no more can it then in a whole
multitude of such like men. Therefore amongst such there is not that
consent of law which makes a multitude a people, whose estate makes a
commonwealth : what need I speak of the profit, that is named in the
definition of a people? for although that none live profitably that live
wickedly, that serve not God but the devils (who are so much the more
wicked in that they being most filthy creatures, dare exact sacrifices as
if they were gods): yet I think that what I have said of the consent of
law may serve to shew that they were no people whose estate might
make a weal-public, having no justice amongst them. If they say
they did not serve devils, but holy gods, what need we rehearse that
here which we said so often before? Who is he that has read over this
work unto this chapter, and yet doubts whether they were devils that the
Romans worshipped or no? unless he be either senselessly thick-headed,
or shamelessly contentious? But to leave the powers that they offered
unto, take this place of holy writ for all: “He that sacrificeth unto
gods, shall be rooted out, save unto one God alone.” He that taught
this in such threatening manner will have no gods sacrificed unto, be
they good or be they bad.

CHAPTER XXII.

Whether Christ, the Christians’ God, be He unto whom only sacrifice ts to
be offered.

Bur they may reply: Who is that God? or how prove you Him to be
worthy of all the Romans’ sacrifices, and none besides Him to have any
part? Oh, it isa sign of great blindness, to have yet to learn who that God
is! It is He whose prophets foretold what our own eyes saw effected :
it is He that told Abraham, “In thy seed shall all the nations be

Of the City of God. | 237

blessed,” which the remainders of the haters of Christianity do know,
whether they will or no, to have been fulfilled in Christ, descended from
Abraham in the flesh. It is that God whose Spirit spake in them whose
prophecies the whole Church beholds fulfilled : the whole Church spread
over the face of the whole earth, beholds them, and in that were they
fulfilled, which I related in my former books. It is that God whom
Varro called the Romans’ Jove, though he know not what he says, yet
this I add because that so great a scholar thought him to be neither no
God at all, nor one of the meanest, for he thought that this was the
great God of all. Briefly, it is even that God whom that learned Philo-
sopher Porphyry (albeit he was a deadly foe to Christianity) acknowledged
to be the highest God, even by the Oracles of those whom he called the
inferior gods.

CHAPTER XXIII.
Porphyry’s relation of the Oracles touching Christ.

For he in his books which he entitles deorcyia piAcoopias, ‘The divinity of
Philosophy,’ wherein he sets down the Oracles’ answers in things belong-
ing to philosophy, has something to this purpose, and thus it is from
the Greek: “One went,” says he, “unto the Oracle, and asked unto
what God he should sacrifice to obtain his wife’s conversion from
Christianity :” Apollo answered him thus: “Thou mayest sooner
write legible letters upon the water, or get thee wings to fly through air
like a bird, than revoke thy wife from her polluted opinion. Let her
run after her mad opinions, as long as she list: let her honour that dead
God with her false lamentations, whom the wise and well-advised judges
condemned, and whom a shameful death upon the cross despatched.”
Thus far the Oracle ; the Greek is in verse but our language will not
bear it. After these verses, Porphyry adds this: ‘“‘ Behold how remedi-
less their erroneous belief is: because as Apollo said, quoth he, the
Jews do receive God with means greater than others.” Hear you this?
he disgraces and obscures Christ, and yet says, ‘“‘ The Jews receive God,”
for so he interprets the Oracle’s verses, where they say that Christ was
condemned by well-advised judges, as though He had been lawfully
condemned and justly executed. This lying priest’s Oracle let him look
unto, and believe if he like: but it may very well be that the Oracle
gave no such answer, but that this is a mere fiction of his. How he
reconciles the Oracles, and agrees with himself, we shall see by-and-by.
But, by the way, here he says that the Jews, as the receivers of God, judged
aright in doing Christ to so ignominious and cruel a death. So then to
the Jews God said well in saying, “ He that sacrificeth unto many gods
shall be rooted out, save unto one God only.” But to proceed, let us go
to more manifest matter, and hear what he makes of the Jews’ God.
He asked Apollo which was better, “ The word, or the law:” and he

238 St Augustine.

answered thus (says he), and then he adds the answer, I will relate as
much of it as is necessary : “ Upon God the Creator, and upon the King
before all things, who maketh heaven and earth, the sea, and hell, yea
and all the gods to tremble: the law is their father, whom the holy
Hebrews do adore.” This glory does Porphyry give the Hebrew God,
from his god Apollo, that the very deities do tremble before Him. So
then this God having said, “ He that sacrifices unto many gods shall be
rooted out,” I wonder that Porphyry was not afraid to be rooted out for
offering to so many gods. Nay, this fellow speaks well of Christ after-
wards, as forgetting the reproach he offered Him before: as if in their
dreams, his gods had scorned Christ, and being awake, commended
Him, and acknowledged His goodness. Finally, as if he meant to speak
some marvellous matter: “It may exceed all belief,” says he, “ which
I am now to deliver: the gods affirmed Christ to be a man most godly,
and immortalised for His goodness, giving Him great commendations :
but for the Christians, they avouch them to be persons stained with all
corruption and error: and give them all the foul words that may be.”
Then he relates the oracles which blaspheme the Christian religion, and
afterwards, Hecate, says he, being asked if Christ were God, replied
thus: “ His soul, being severed from His body, became immortal ; but
it wanders about void of all wisdom: it was the soul of a most worthy
man, whom now those that forsake the truth do worship” And then
he adds his own sayings upon this oracle, in this manner. ‘‘ The god-
dess therefore called Him a most godly man, and that the deluded
Christians do worship His soul, being made immortal after death, as
other godly souls are.” Now, being asked why He was condemned
then? she answered: ‘‘ His body was condemned to torments, but His
soul sits above in heaven, and gives all those souls unto error by destiny,
who cannot attain the gifts of the gods, or come to the knowledge of
immortal love. And therefore are they hated of the gods, because they
- neither acknowledge them nor receive their gifts, but are destined unto
error by Him: now He Himself was godly, and went up to heaven as
godly men do. Therefore blaspheme not Him, but pity the poor fools
whom He has bound in error.”

What man is there so fond that cannot observe that these oracles are
either directly feigned by this crafty foe of Christianity, or else the
devil’s own tricks to this end, that in praising Christ they might seem
truly to reprehend the Christian profession ? and so, if they could, to stop
man’s entrance into Christianity, the sole way unto salvation? for they
think it no prejudice to their many-formed deceit, to be believed in
praising of Christ as long as they be believed also in dispraising the
Christian, so that he that believes them must be a commender of Christ,
and yet a contemner of His religion. And thus although he honour
Christ, yet shall not Christ free him from the clutches of the devil,
because they give Christ such a kind of praise, as whoso believes to be

Of the City of God. 239

true shall be far from true Christianity, and rather than otherwise, of
Photinus’ heresy, who held Christ to be only man, and no God
at all: so that such a believer should never be saved by Christ, nor
cleared of the devil’s fowling nets.

But we will neither believe Apollo in his depravation, nor Hecate in
her commendation of Christ. He will have Christ a wicked man, and
justly condemned ; she will have Him a most godly man, and yet but
only man. But both agree in this, they would have no Christians,
because all but Christians are in their clutches. But let this philo-
sopher, or they that give credence to those oracles against Christianity, if
they can reconcile Apollo and Hecate, and make them both tell one
tale, either in Christ’s praise or dispraise. Which if they could do, yet
would we avoid them, as deceitful devils, both in their good words and
in their bad. But seeing this god and this goddess cannot agree about
Christ, truly men have no reason to believe or obey them in forbidding
Christianity. Truly either Porphyry or Hecate in these commendations
of Christ, affirming that He destined the Christians to error, yet goes
about to shew the causes of this error; which before I relate, I will ask
him this one question: If Christ did predestinate all Christians unto error,
whether did He this wittingly or against His will? If He did it wittingly,
how then can He be just ? if it were against His will, how can He then
be happy? But now to the causes of this error. There are some spirits
of the earth, says he, which are under the rule of the evil demons.
These, the Hebrew wise men (whereof Jesus was one, as the divine
oracle, declared before, does testify) forbade the religious persons to
meddle withal, advising them to attend the celestial powers, and especially
God the Father, with all the reverence they possibly could. And this,
says he, the gods also do command us, as we have already shewn, how
they admonish us to reverence God in all places. But the ignorant and
wicked, having no divine gift, nor any knowledge of that great and
immortal love, nor following the precepts of the gods or good men, have
cast all the deities at their heels, choosing not only to respect, but even
to reverence those depraved demons. And whereas they profess the
service of God, they do nothing belonging to His service. For God is
the Father of all things, and stands not in need of anything: and it is
well for us to exhibit Him His worship in chastity, justice, and the other
virtues, making our whole life a continual prayer unto Him, by our search
and imitation of Him. For our search of Him, quoth he, purifies us,
and our imitation of Him deifies the effects in ourselves. Thus well
has he taught God the Father unto us, and us how to offer our service
unto Him. The Hebrew prophets are full of such holy precepts, con-
cerning both the commendation and reformation of the saints’ lives. But
as concerning Christianity, there he errs, and slanders, as far as his devil’s
pleasure is, those whom he holds deities : as though it were so hard a
matter, out of the obscenities practised and published in their temples

240 St Augustine.

and the true worship and doctrine presented before God in our churches,
to discern where manners were reformed and where they were ruined.
Who but the devil himself could inspire him with so shameless a falsifi-
cation, as to say that the Christians do rather honour than detest the ©
devils whose adoration was forbidden by the Hebrews? No, that God
whom the Hebrews adored, will not allow any sacrifice unto His holiest
angels (whom we that are pilgrims on earth, do notwithstanding love
and reverence as most sanctified members of the city of heaven) but
forbids it directly in this thundering menace: “ He that sacrificeth unto
gods, shall be rooted out,” and lest it should be thought He meant
only of the earthly spirits, whom this fellow calls the lesser powers, and
whom the Scripture also calls gods (not of the Hebrews, but the
heathens), as is evident in that one place, Psalm xcvi. 5: “For all the
gods of the heathen are devils:” lest any should imagine that the fore-
said prohibition extended no further than these devils, or that it con-
cerned not the offering to the celestial spirits, he adds : “save only the
Lord alone, but unto one God only.” Some may take the words, mist
domino solt,to be ‘unto the Lord, the Son:’ and so understand the
place to be meant of Apollo, but [the original, and] the Greek transla-
tions do subvert all such misprision. So then the Hebrew God, so
highly commended by this philosopher, gave the Hebrews a law in their
own language, not obscure or uncertain, but already scattered through-
out all the world, wherein this clause was literally contained: “ He that
sacrificeth unto gods shall be rooted out, save only unto the Lord.”
What need we make any further search into the law and the prophets
concerning this? nay, what need we search at all, they are so plain and
so manifold, that what need I stand aggravating my disputation with any
multitudes of those places, that exclude all powers of heaven and earth
from participating of the honours due unto God alone? Behold this
one place, spoken in brief, but in powerful manner by the mouth of that
’ God whom the wisest Ethnics do so highly extol; let us mark it, fear
it, and observe it, lest we also be rooted out: ‘He that sacrificeth unto
more gods than that true and only Lord, shall be rooted out:” yet God
Himself is far from needing any of our services, but all that we do
herein is for the good of our own souls. Hereupon the Hebrews say in
their holy Psalms: “I have said unto the Lord, Thou art my God, my
well-doing is nothing unto Thee:” no, we ourselves are the best and
most excellent sacrifice that He can have offered Him. It is His city
whose mystery we celebrate in such oblations as the faithful do full weil
understand, as I said once already. For the ceasing of all the typical
offerings that were exhibited by the Jews, and the ordaining of one sacri-
fice, to be offered through the whole world from East to West (as now
we see it is) was prophesied long before, from God, by the mouths of
holy Hebrews : whom we have cited, as much as needed, in convenient
places of this our work.

Of the City of God. 241

Therefore, to conclude, where there is not this justice that God rules
all alone over the society that obeys Him by grace, and yields to His
prohibition of sacrifice unto all but Himself, and where in every member
belonging to this heavenly society, the soul is lord over the body, and
all the bad effects thereof, in the obedience of God, and an orderly
form, so that all the just (as well as one) live according to faith which
works by love, in which a man loves God as he should, and his neigh-
bour as himself; where this justice is not, there is no society of men
combined in one uniformity of law and profit: consequently, no true
state popular: (if that definition hold touch), and finally no common-
wealth ; for where the people have no certain state, the general has no
exact form.

CHAPTER XXIV.

A definition of a people by which both the Romans and other kingdoms
may challenge themselves commonwealths.

But omit the former definition of a people, and take this: “A people
is a multitude of reasonable creatures conjoined in a general communi-
cation of those things it respects:” and then to discern the state of the
people, you must first consider what those things are. But whatever they
be, where there is a multitude of men, conjoined in a common fruition
of what they properly desire, there may fitly be said to be a people: the
better that their higher interests are, the better are they themselves, and
otherwise, the worse. By this definition, Rome had a people, and con-
sequently a commonwealth: what they embraced at the first, and what
afterwards, what goodness they changed into bloodiness, what concord
they forsook for seditions, confederacies and civil wars, history can
testify, and we (in part) have already related. Yet this does not bar
them the name of a people, nor their state from the style of a common-
wealth, as long as they bear this our last definition uninfringed. And
what I have said of them, I may say of the Athenians, the Greeks in
general, the Egyptians, and the Assyrian Babylonians, were their
dominions great or little, and so of all nations in the world. For in the
“City of the wicked,” where God does not govern and men obey, sacri-
ficing unto Him alone, and consequently where the soul does not rule
the body, nor reason the passions, there is generally found wanting the
virtue of true justice.

CHAPTER XXV.
That there can be no true virtue where there ts no true religion.

For though there be a seeming of these things, yet if the soul and the

reason serve not God, as He has taught them how to serve Him, they

can never have true dominion over the body, nor over the passions : for

how can that soul have any true measure of this decorum, that knows
Q

242 St Augustine.

not God, nor serves His greatness, but is prostituted with the influence
of the unclean and filthy devils? No, those things which she seems to
account virtues, and thereby to sway her affections, if they be not all
referred unto God, are indeed rather vices than virtues. For although
some hold them to be real virtues, when they are desired only for their
own account, and nothing else ; yet even so they incur vainglory, and so
lose their true goodness. For as it is not of the flesh, but above the
flesh, that animates the body ; so it is not of man, but above man, which
beatifies the mind of man, yea, and of all the powers of the heavens.

CHAPTER XXVI.

The peace of God's enemies, useful to the piety of His friends as long as
their earthly pilgrimage lasts.

WHEREFORE, as the soul is the flesh’s life, so is God the beatitude of
man, as the Hebrew’s holy writ affirms: “ Blessed is the people whose
God is the Lord ;” wretched then are they that are strangers to that God,
and yet have those a kind of allowable peace, but that they shall not
have for ever, because they used it not well when they had it. But that
they should have it in this life is for our good also ; because that during
our commixture with Babylon, we ourselves make use of her peace, and
faith does free the people of God at length out of her, yet so, as in the
meantime we live as pilgrims in her. And therefore the apostle
admonished the Church, to pray for the kings and potentates of that
earthly city, adding this reason, ‘‘ That we may lead a quiet life in all
godliness and charity.” And the prophet Jeremiah, foretelling the
captivity of God’s ancient people, commanding them (from the Lord) to
go peaceably and patiently to Babylon, advised them also to pray,
saying, “‘ For in her peace shall be your peace,” meaning that temporal
peace which is common both to good and bad.

CHAPTER XXVII.

The peace of God's servants, the fulness whereof it is impossible in this
life to comprehend.

But as for our proper peace, we have it double with God: here below
by faith, and hereafter above by sight. But all the peace we have here,
be it public or peculiar, is rather a solace to our misery, than any
assurance of our felicity. And for our righteousness, although it be
truly such, because the end is the true good whereunto it is referred,
yet as long as we live here, it consists rather of sin’s remission, than of
virtue’s perfection ; witness that prayer which all God’s pilgrims use, and
every member of His holy city, crying daily unto Him, “ Forgive us our
trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us.” Nor does this

Of the City of God, 243

prayer benefit them whose faith, wanting works, is dead, but them whose
faith works by love: for, because our reason though it be subject unto
God, yet as long as it is in the corruptible body, which burdens the soul,
cannot have the affections under perfect obedience, therefore the justest
_™man stands in need of this prayer. For though that reason have the
conquest, it is not without combat. And still one touch of infirmity or
other, creeps upon the best conqueror, even when he hopes that he holds
all viciousness under, making him fall either by some vain word, or
some inordinate thought, if it bring him not unto actual error. And
therefore as long as we overrule sin, our peace is imperfect : because
both the affections not as yet conquered are subdued by dangerous con-
flict, and they that are under already do deny us all security, and keep
us doing in a continual and careful command. So then, in all these
temptations (whereof God said in word, “Is not the life of man a
temptation upon earth ?”) who dare say he lives so, that he need not say
to God, “ Forgive us our trespasses”? none but a proud fool. Nor is
he mighty, but madly vainglorious, that in his own righteousness will
resist Him, who gives grace to the humble, whereupon it is written, “‘ God
resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.” Man’s righteous-
ness therefore is this: to have God his Lord, and himself His subject,
his soul master over his body, and his reason over sin, either by sub-
duing it or resisting it: and to entreat God both for His grace
for merit, and His pardon for sin, and lastly to be grateful for
all His bestowed graces. But in that final peace, unto which all
man’s peace and righteousness on earth has reference, immortality
and incorruption do so refine nature from viciousness, that there we shall
have no need of reason to rule over sin, for there shall be no sin at all
there, but God shall rule man, and the soul the body: obedience shall
there be as pleasant and easy, as the state of them that live shall be
glorious and happy. And this shall all have unto all eternity, and shall
be sure to have it so, and therefore the blessedness of this peace, or the
peace of this blessedness, shall be the fulness and perfection of all
goodness,

CHAPTER XXVIII.
The end of the wicked.

But on the other side, they that are not of this society are destined to
eternal misery, called the second death, because there, even the soul, being
deprived of God, seems not to live, much less the body, bound in ever-
lasting torments. And therefore, this second death shall be so much the
more cruel, in that it shall never have end. But seeing war is the contrary
of peace, as misery is unto bliss, and death to life, it is a question what
kind of war shall reign as then amongst the wicked, to answer and oppose

244, St Augustine.

the peace of the godly. But mark only the hurt of war, and it is plainly
apparent to be nothing but the adverse disposal and contentious con-
flict of things between themselves. What then can be worse than that,
where the will is such a foe to the passion, and the passion to the will,
that they are for ever insuppressible and irreconcilable? and where
nature and pain shall hold an eternal conflict, and yet the one never
master the other? In our conflicts here on earth, either the pain is
victor, and so death expels sense of it, or nature conquers, and expels
the pain. But there, pain shall afflict eternally, and nature shall suffer
eternally, both enduring to the continuance of the inflicted punishment.
But seeing that the good and the bad are in that great judgment to pass
unto those ends, the one to be sought for, and the other to be fled
from: by God’s permission and assistance, I will in the next book fol-
lowing have a little discourse of that last day, and that terrible judgment.

7

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THE
TWENTIETH BOOK OF THE CITY OF GOD.

—:0:——

CHAPTER I.

God's judgments continually effected: His last judgment the proper subject
of this book following.

Boe now to discourse of the day of God’s last judgment, against

the faithless and the wicked, we must lay down Holy Scriptures
first for the foundation of our following structure: which some believe
not, but oppose them with fond and frivolous arguments, wresting them
either quite unto another purpose, or utterly denying them to contain
anything Divine. For I do not think that man lives, who understand-
ing them as they are spoken, and believing that God inspired them into
sanctified men, will not give his full assent unto what they aver, but he
must needs profess as much, be he never so ashamed or afraid to avouch
it, or never so obstinate that he would conceal it, and study to defend
mere and known falsehood against it. Wherefore, the whole Church
believes and professes that Christ is to come from heaven “to judge
both the quick and the dead,” and this we call the day of God’s judg-
ment, the last time of all: for how many days this judgment will hold
we know not, but the Scripture uses day for time very often, as none
that uses to read it but well discerns it. And we, when we speak of
this day, do add last, “the last day,” because that God does judge
at this present and has done ever since He set man forth of Paradise,
and chased our first parents from the Tree of Life for their offences ;
nay, from the time that He cast out the transgressing angels, whose
envious prince does all that he can now to ruin the souls of men.
It is nis judgment that both men and devils do live in such miseries
and perturbations in air and earth, fraught with nothing but evils and
errors.

And if no man had offended, it had been His good judgment that man

246 St Augustine.

and all reasonable creatures had lived in perfect beatitude and eternal
coherence with the Lord their God. So that He judges not only men
and devils unto misery in general, but He censures every particular soul
for the works it has performed out of freedom of will. For the devils
pray that they may not be tormented, neither does God unjustly either
in sparing them or punishing them: and man, sometimes in public, but
continually in secret, feels the hand of Almighty God punishing him for
his trespasses and misdeeds, either in this life or in the next: though
no man can do well without the help of God, nor any devil can do hurt
without His just permission. For, as the apostle says: “Is there un
righteousness in God? God forbid :” and in another place, “ Unsearch
able are His judgments, and His ways past finding out.” I intend not,
therefore, in this book to meddle with God’s ordinary daily judgments,
or with those at first, but with that great and last judgment of His (by
His gracious permission) when Christ shall come from heaven, “to
judge both the quick and the dead,” for that is properly called the
judgment day: because there shall be no place for ignorant com-
plaint upon the happiness of the bad and the misery of the good. The
true and perfect felicity on that day shall be assured only to the good,
and eternal torment shall then shew itself as an everlasting inheritance
only for the evil.

CHAPTER II.
The change of human estates ordered by God's unsearchable judgments.

But here on earth the evils endured by the good men instruct us to
endure them with patience, and the goods enjoyed by the wicked,
advise us not to covet them too eagerly. Thus in the things where
God’s judgments are not to be discovered, His counsel is not to
be neglected. We know not why God makes this bad man rich, and
that good man poor: that he should have joy whose deserts we hold
worthier of pains, and he pains whose good life we imagine to merit con-
tent: that the judge’s corruption or falseness of the witnesses should send
the innocent away condemned, much more uncleared ; and the injurious
foe should depart revenged, much more unpunished ; that the wicked
man should live sound, and the godly lie bed-rid; that lusty youths
should turn thieves, and those that never did hurt in word be plagued
with extremity of sickness ; that silly infants, of good use in the world
should be cut off by untimely death, while they that seem unworthy
ever to have been born, attain long and happy life; that the guilty
should be honoured, and the godly oppressed, and such like as these :
O who can stand to collect or recount them? ;

These now, albeit they kept this seemingly absurd order continually,
that in this whole life (wherein as the prophet says in the Psalm, “ Man
is like to vanity, and his days like a shadow that vanisheth ”) the wicked

Of the City of God. 247

alone should possess those temporal good things, and the good only
suffer evils, yet might this be referred to God’s just judgments, yea, even
to His mercies: that such as sought not for eternal felicity, might either
for their malice, be justly deluded by this transitory happiness, or by
God’s mercy be a comfort unto the good, and that they being not to
lose the bliss eternal, might for a while be exercised by crosses tem-
poral, either for the correction of sins, or augmentation of their virtues.

But now, seeing that not only the good are afflicted, and the bad
exalted (which seems injustice), but the good also often enjoy good, and
the wicked, evil; this proves God’s judgments more inscrutable, and
His ways more unsearchable. Although, then, we see no cause why
God should do thus or thus; He in whom is all wisdom, and justice,
and no weakness, nor rashness, nor injustice: yet here we learn that
we may not esteem too highly of those goods, or misfortunes, which we
see the bad share with the righteous. But to seek the good, peculiar to
the one, and to avoid the evil reserved for the other.

And when we come to that great judgment, properly called “the Jay
of doom,” or “ the consummation of time :” there we shall not only see
all things apparent, but acknowledge all the judgments of God from the
first to the last, to be firmly grounded upon justice. And there we
shall learn, and know this also, why God’s judgments are generally
incomprehensible unto us, and how just His judgments are in that
point also: aithough already indeed it is manifest unto the faithful, that
- are justly, as yet, ignorant in them all, or at least in the most of
them.

CHAPTER III.

Solomon’s, disputation in Ecclesiastes, concerning those good things which
both the just and the unjust do share in.

Sotomon, the wisest king that ever reigned over Israel, begins his
book called Ecclesiastes (which the Jews themselves hold for canonical),
in this manner: “ Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” What remains unto
man of all his travails which he suffers under the sun ?_ Unto which,
he annexes the torments and tribulations of this declining world, and
the short and swift courses of time, wherein nothing is firm, nothing
constant. In this vanity of all things under the sun, he bewails this
also for one, that seeing “ There is more profit in wisdom than in folly,
as the light is more excellent than darkness ; and seeing the wise man’s
eyes are in his head, when the fool walketh in darkness,” yet, that one
condition, one estate, should befall them both as touching this vain and
transitory life: meaning hereby, that they were both alike exposed to
those evils that good men and bad do sometimes both alike endure. He
says further, that the good shall suffer as the bad do: and the bad shall
enjoy good things, as the good do, in these words; “ There is a vanity

248 St Augustine.

which is done upon the earth, that there be righteous men to whom it
happeneth according to the work of the wicked, and there be wicked men
to whom it happeneth according to the work of the just: I thought also
that this is vanity.” In discovery of this vanity, the wise man wrote all
this whole work, for no other cause but that we might discern that life
which is not vanity under the sun, but truth, under Him that made the
sun. But as touching this worldly vanity, is it not God’s just judgment
that man being made like it, should vanish also like it? yet in these his
days of vanity, there is much between the obeying, and the opposing
of truth: and between partaking and neglecting of godliness and good-
ness. But this is not respect of attaining or avoiding any terrestrial good
or evil, but of the great future judgment, which shall distribute good
things to the good, and evil to the evil, to remain with them for ever.
Finally, the said wise king concludes his book thus: “ Fear God and
keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man, for God
will bring every work unto judgment of every despised man, be it good
or be it evil,” how can we have an instruction more brief, more true, or
more wholesome? ‘Fear God,” says he, “and keep His commandments,
for this is the whole duty of man,” for he that does this, is full man,
and he that does it not, is in account, nothing, because he is not
reformed according to the image of truth, but remains still in the shape
of vanity: “for God will bring every work,” that is every act of man in
this life, unto judgment, be it good or evil, yea the works of every
despised man, of every contemptible person that seems not to be noted
at all, God sees him, and despises him not, neither overpasses him in
His judgment.

CHAPTER IV.

The authors resolution in this discourse of the Judgment, to produce the
testimonies of the New Testament first, and then of the Old.

THE testimonies of Holy Scriptures by which I mean to prove this last
judgment of God, must be first of all taken out of the New Testament,
and then out of the Old. For though the latter be the more ancient.
yet the former are more worthy, as being the true contents of the latter.
The former then shall proceed first, and they shall be backed by the
latter. These, that is, the old ones, the law and the prophets afford us
the former (the new one) the Gospels, and the writings of the apostles.
Now the apostle says: “ By the law cometh the knowledge of sin. But
now is the righteousness of God made manifest without the law, having
witness of the law and the prophets, to wit, the righteousness of God
by the faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all that believe.” This
righteousness of God belongs unto the New Testament, and has con-
firmation from the Old, namely the law and the prophets. We must
therefore first of all propound the cause, and then produce the con-

Of the City of God. 249

firmations, for Christ Himself so ordered it, saying: ‘Every scribe

which is taught unto the Kingdom of Heaven is like unto an house-

holder which bringeth out of his treasury things both new and old.”

He says not, “both old and new,” but if He had not respected the order

. Gieety more than of antiquity, He would have done so, and not as
e di

CHAPTER V.

Places of Scripture proving that there shall be a day of judgment at the
world’s end.

Our Saviour therefore, condemning the cities, in whom His great
miracles did not induce faith, and preferring aliens before them; tells
them this, “I say unto you, it shall be easier for Tyre and Sidon at the
day of judgment than for you.” And afterwards, unto another city:
“T say unto you, that it shall be easier for them of the land of Sodom
in the day of judgment than for thee.” Here is a plain prediction of
such a day. Again: “The men of Nineveh,” says He, “shall arise in
judgment with this generation, and condemn it,” &c. ‘“‘ The queen of
the south shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn
it,” &c. Here we learn two things, 1. That there shall be a judgment ;
2. That it shall be when the dead do arise again. For our Saviour, speak-
ing of the Ninevites, and of the queen of the south, speaks of them that
were dead long before. Now He said not, “shall condemn,” as if they
were to be the judges, but that their comparison with the aforesaid
generation shall justly procure the judge’s condemning sentence.
Again, speaking of the present commixture of the good and bad, and
their future separation, in the day of judgment, He uses a simile of the
.sown wheat, and the tares, sown afterwards amongst it, which He ex-
pounds unto His disciples: “ He that soweth the good seed is the Son
of Man: the field is the world: the good seed, they are the children
of the kingdom: the tares are the children of the wicked: the enemy
that soweth, that is the devil: the harvest is the end of the world: and
the reapers be the angels. As then the tares are gathered and burned
in the fire, so shall it be in the end of this world: the Son of Man shall
send forth His angels and they shall gather out of His Kingdom all
things that offend, and they which do iniquity, and shall cast them into
a furnace of fire: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then
shall the just men shine as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He
that hath ears to hear, let him hear.”

He names not the judgment day here: but He expresses it far more
plainly by the effects, and promises it to befall at the end of the world.
Furthermore, He says to His disciples: “ Verily I say unto you, that
when the Son of Man shall sit in the throne of His majesty, then ye
which followed Me in the regeneration, shall sit also upon twelve

250 St Augustine.

thrones and judge the twelve tribes of Israel.” Here we see that
Christ shall be Judge, together with His apostles. Whereupon He
said unto the Jews in another place: “If I through Beelzebub cast
out devils, by whom do your children cast them out? therefore they
shall be your judges.” But now, in that He speaks of twelve thrones,
we may not imagine that He, and one twelve more with Him, shall be
the world’s judges. The number of twelve, includes the whole number
of the judges, by reason of the two parts of seven, which number
signifies totality: which two parts, four and three multiplied either
by other, make up twelve, three times four, or four times three, is
twelve (besides other reasons why twelve is used in these words of our
Saviour). Otherwise Mathias having Judas’ place, St Paul should
have no place left him to sit as judge in, though he took more pains
than them all: but that he belongs unto the number of the judges, his
own words do prove: “ Know ye not that we shall judge the angels?”
The reason of their judgments also is included in the number of twelve.
For Christ in saying, “To judge the twelve tribes of Israel,” excludes
neither the tribe of Levi, which was the thirteenth, nor all the other
nations besides Israel, from undergoing this judgment.

Now whereas He says, “‘In the regeneration,” hereby assuredly He
means the resurrection of the dead. For our flesh shall be regenerate
by incorruption, as our soul is by faith. I omit many things that might
concern this great day, because inquiry may rather make them seem
ambiguous, or belonging unto other purpose than this: as either unto
Christ’s daily coming unto His Church in His members, unto each in
particular, or unto the destruction of the earthly Jerusalem, because our
Saviour, speaking of that, uses the same phrase that He uses concerning
the end of the world, and the last judgment, so that we can scarcely
distinguish them except by comparing the three evangelists, Matthew,
Mark, and Luke, together, in their places touching this point. For one
has it somewhat difficult, and another, more apparent, the one explain-
ing the intent of the other. And those places have I compared together
in one of my epistles unto Hesychius (of blessed memory), Bishop of
Salon ; the epistle is entituled De jine secult, ‘of the world’s end.’ So that
I will in this place relate only that place of St Matthew, where Christ
(the last judge, being then present) shall separate the good from the
bad. It is thus.

“When the Son of Man cometh in His glory, and all the holy angels
with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory, and before
Him shall be gathered all nations, and He shall separate them one from
another as a shepherd separateth the sheep from the goats, and He shall
set the sheep on His right hand, and the goats on His left. Then shall
the King say to them on His right hand : Come, ye blessed of My Father,
inherit ye the kingdom prepared for you from the foundations of the
world. For I was an hungered, and ye gave Me meat; I thirsted, and

.

Of the City of God. 251

ye gave Me drink; I was a stranger, and ye lodged Me; I was naked,
and ye clothed Me; I was sick, and ye visited Me; I was in prison,
and ye came unto Me.” Then shall the righteous answer Him saying:
“Lord, when saw we Thee an hungered and fed Thee, or athirst, and
gave Thee drink?” &c. And the King shall answer, and say unto
them, “ Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of
the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me.” Then shall
He say unto them on the left hand: “ Depart from Me, ye cursed, into
everlasting fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was
an hungered, and ye gave Me no meat: I thirsted, and ye gave Me no
drink,” &c. Then shall they also answer Him, saying: “Lord, when
saw we Thee hungry, or athirst, or a stranger; or naked, or in prison,
or sick, and did not minister unto Thee?” Then shall He answer
them, and say, “ Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye did it not unto
one of the least of these, ye did it not unto Me. And these shall go
into everlasting fire, and the righteous into life eternal.”

Now John the Evangelist shews plainly that Christ foretold this judg-
ment to be at the resurrection. For having said, ‘‘The Father judgeth
no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son; because all
men should honour the Son as they honour the Father ; he that
honoureth not the Son, the same honoureth not the Father that sent
Him.” He adds forthwith, ‘Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that
heareth My word and believeth in Him that sent Me, hath everlasting
life, and shall not come into judgment, but shall pass from death to
life.” Behold, here He avouches directly that the faithful shall not be
judged. How then shall they by His judgment be severed from the
faithless, unless judgment be used here for condemnation? For that is
the judgment into which they that hear His word and believe in Him
that sent Him, shall never enter.

CHAPTER VI.
What the first resurrection is, and what the second.

TuEN He proceeds, in these words: “ Verily, verily, I say unto you, the
hour shall come, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the
Son of God, and they that hear it shall live. For as the Father hath
life in Himself, so likewise hath He given unto the Son to have life in
Himself.”

He does not speak as yet of the second resurrection, of that of the
body’s, which is to come, but of the first resurrection, which is now.
For to distinguish these two He says, “the hour shall come, and now
is.” Now this is the soul’s resurrection, not the body's; for the souls
have their deaths in sin, as the bodies have in nature ; and therein were
they dead, of whom our Saviour said, “let the dead bury their dead,”

ad

252 St Augustine.

to wit, let the dead in soul bury the dead in body. So then these
words, “‘ The hour shall come, and now is, when the dead shall hear the
voice of the Son of God, and they that hear it shall live.” They that
hear it, that is, they that obey it, believe it, and remain init. He makes
no distinction here, between good and evil, none at all. For it is good
for all to hear His voice, and thereby to pass out of the death of sin
and impiety, unto life and eternity. Of this death in sin the apostle
speaks, in these words: “If one died for all, then were all dead,
and He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live
unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them and rose again.”
Thus, then, all were dead in sin, none excepted, either in original sin,
or in actual: either by being ignorant of good, or by knowing good and
not performing it: and for all these dead souls, one living Son came,
and died ; living, that is, One without all sin, that such as get life by
having their sins remitted, should no more live unto themselves, but
unto Him that suffered for all our sins, and rose again for the justification
of us all, that we which believe upon the Justifier of the wicked, being
justified out of wickedness, and raised (as it were) from death to life,
may be assured to belong unto the first resurrection, that now is. For
none but such as are heirs of eternal bliss, have any part in this first
resurrection : but the second, is common both to the blessed and the
wretched. The first is mercy’s resurrection: the second, judgment’s.
And therefore the Psalm says : “I will sing of mercy and judgment unto
Thee, O Lord!” With this judgment the Evangelist proceeds, thus:
“And hath given Him power also to execute judgment, in that He is
the Son of Man.” Lo, here now, in that flesh, wherein He was judged,
shall He come to be the whole world’s Judge. For these words, “In
that He is the Son of Man,” have a direct aim at this. And then he
adds this: “ Marvel not at this, for the hour shall come in the which,
all that are in the graves shall hear His voice; and they shall come

forth, which have done good, unto the resurrection of life; but they that

have done evil unto the resurrection of judgment.”

This is that judgment which He put before, for condemnation, when
He said, “ He that heareth My word,” &c., “shall not come into judg-
ment, but shall pass from death to life,” that is, he belongs to the first
resurrection, and that belongs to life, so that he shall not come into
condemnation, which he understands by the word “ judgment” in this
last place, “unto the resurrection of judgment.” O rise then in the
first resurrection all you that will not perish in the second! “For the
hour will come, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the
Son of God, and they that hear it shall live:” that is, they shall not
come into condemnation, which is called the second death : unto which
they shall all be cast headlong after the second resurrection, that arise
not in the first. “For the hour will come” (He says not that the hour
1s now, because it shall be in the world’s end) ; in the which all that are

Of the City of God. 253

in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth: but He says
not here as He said before, and “ they that hear it, shall live,” for they
shall not live all in bliss, which is only to be called life, because it is the
true life.

Yet must they have some life, otherwise they could neither hear nor
arise in their quickened flesh. And why shall not all they live? He
gives this subsequent reason :

“They that have done good shall come forth unto the resurrection
of life:” and these only are they that shall live: “they that have done
evil, unto the resurrection of condemnation,” and these (God wot) shall
not live, for they shall die the second death. In living badly they have
done badly, and in refusing to rise in the first resurrection they have
lived badly, or at least in not continuing their resurrection unto the
consummation. So then, as there are two regenerations, one in faith by
baptism, and another in the flesh, by incorruption ; so are there two resur-
rections, the first (that is now) of the soul, preventing the second death.
The latter (future) of the body, sending some into the second death,
and other some into the life that despises and excludes all death what-
soever.

CHAPTER VII.

Of the two resurrections: what may be thought of the thousand years
mentioned in Saint John’s Revelation.

Samnt JoHN the Evangelist in his Revelation speaks of these two resur-
rections in such dark manner, as some of our divines, exceeding their
own ignorance in the first, do wrest it unto divers ridiculous interpreta-
tions. His words are these: “ And I saw an angel come down from
heaven having the key of the bottomless pit, and a great chain in his
hand; and he took that dragon, that old serpent which is the devil and
Satan, and bound him a thousand years, and he cast him into the
bottomless pit, and shut him up, and sealed the doors upon him, that
he should deceive the people no more, till the thousand years were
fulfilled. For after he must be loosed for a little season. And I saw
thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them ; and
I saw the souls of them which were slain for the testimony of Jesus, and
for the word of God, and worshipped not the beast, nor his image,
neither had taken his mark upon their foreheads, or on their hands: and
they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the rest of the
dead men shall not live again until the thousand years be finished : this
is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath his part in
the first resurrection, for on such the second death hath no power, but
they shall be the priests of God and of Christ, and reign with Him a
thousand years.”

‘The chiefest reason that moved many to think that this place implied
a corporal resurrection, was drawn from the thousand years, as if the

254 St Augustine.

saints should have a continual Sabbath enduring so long, to wit, a
thousand years’ leisure after the six thousand of trouble, beginning at
man’s creation and expulsion out of Paradise into the sorrows of
mortality, that since it is written, “One day is with the Lord as a
thousand years, and a thousand years as one day ;” therefore six thou-
sand years being finished (as the six days), the seventh should follow,
for the time of Sabbath, and last a thousand years also, all the saints
rising corporally from the dead to celebrate it. ; f

This opinion might be allowed, if it proposed only spiritual delights unto
the saints during this space (we were once of the same opinion our-
selves); but seeing the avouchers hereof affirm that the saints after
this resurrection shall do nothing but revel in fleshly banquets, where
the cheer shall exceed both modesty and measure, this is gross, and fit
for none but carnal men to believe. But they that are really and truly
spiritual do call those opinionists Chiliasts ; the word is Greek, and may
be interpreted, Millennaries, or Thousand-year-ists.

This is not the place to confute them ; let us rather take the text’s true
sense along with us. Our Lord Jesus Christ says: “ No man can enter
into a strong man’s house, and take away his goods, unless he first bind
the strong man, and then spoil his house:” meaning by this strong
man, the devil, because he alone was able to hold mankind in captivity ;
and meaning by the goods he would take away, his future faithful, whom
the devil held as his own in divers sins and impieties. That this strong
man therefore might be bound, the apostle saw the angel coming down
from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit, and a great chain in
his hand: “ And he took,” says he, “‘ the dragon, that old serpent, which
is the devil and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,” that is,
restrained him from seducing or withholding them that were to be set
free. The thousand years, I think, may be taken two ways, either for
that this shall fall out in the last thousand, that is, on the sixth day of
- the work’s continuance, and then the Sabbath of the saints should
follow, which shall have no night, and bring them blessedness which
has no end: so that thus the apostle may call the last part of the
current thousand (which make the sixth day) a thousand years, using the
part for the whole; or else a thousand years is put for eternity, noting
the plenitude of time by a number most perfect. For a thousand is the
solid quadrate of ten: ten times ten is one hundred, and this is a
quadrate, but it is but a plain one; but to produce the solid, multiply
ten by a hundred, and there arises one thousand.

Now if a hundred be sometimes used for perfection, as we see it is in
Christ’s words concerning him that should leave all and follow Him,
saying: “He shall receive an hundredfold more” (which the apostle
seems to expound, saying, “As having nothing, and yet possessing all
things,” for he had said before, ‘‘ Unto a faithful man the whole world
is his riches ”) : why then may not one thousand be for consummation, the

Of the City of God. 255

rather, in that it is the most solid square that can be drawn from ten?
And therefore we interpret that place of the Psalm, ‘“‘He hath alway
remembered His covenant and promise that He made to a thousand
generations,” by taking a thousand for all in general. Let us proceed.
“ And he cast him into the bottomless pit ;” he cast the devils into that
pit, that is, the multitude of the wicked, whose malice unto God’s Church
is bottomless, and their hearts a depth of envy against it: he cast him
into this pit, not that he was not there before, but because the devil
being shut from amongst the godly, holds faster possession of the
wicked: for he is a most sure hold of the devils, that is, not only cast
out from God’s servants, but pursues them also with a causeless hate.
Tocontinue. ‘ And shut him up, and sealed the door upon him, that he
should deceive the people no more till the thousand years were expired,”
he sealed, that is, his will was to keep it unknown, who belonged to
the devil, and who did not. For this is unknown unto this world, for
we know not whether he that stands shall fall, or he that has fallen
shall rise again. But howsoever this bond restrains him from tempting
the nations that are God’s elected, as he did before. For God chose
them before the foundations of the world, meaning to take them out of
the power of darkness, and set them in the kingdom of His Son’s glory,
as the apostle says. For who knows not the devils daily seducing and
drawing of other unto eternal torment, though they be none of the pre-
destinate? Nor is it wonder if the devil subvert some of thosé who are
even regenerate in Christ, and walk in His ways. For God knows
those that be His, and the devil cannot draw a soul of them unto
damnation. For this God knows, as knowing all things to come, not
as one man sees another, in presence, and cannot tell what shall be-
come either of him he sees, or of himself hereafter. The devil was
therefore bound and locked up, that he should no more seduce the
nations (the Church’s members) whom he had held in error and im-
piety, before they were united unto the Church. It is not said, “ that
he should deceive no man any more,” but “that he should deceive the
people no more,” whereby questionless he means the Church. To pro-
ceed: “until the thousand years be fulfilled,” that is, either the re-
mainder of the sixth day (the last thousand) or the whole time that the
world was to continue. Nor may we understand the devil so to be
barred from seducing, that at this time expired, he should seduce those
nations again, whereof the Church consists, and from which he was
forbidden before. But this place is like unto that of the Psalm, “Our
eyes wait upon the Lord until He have mercy upon us ” (for the servants
of God take not their eyes from beholding as soon as He has mercy
upon them), or else the order of the words is this, “ He shut him up,
and sealed the doors upon him until a thousand years were fulfilled,”
all that comes between, namely, that he should not deceive the people,
having no necessary connection hereunto, but being to be severally

256 St Augustine.

understood, as if it were added afterwards, and so the sense run thus:
“ And He shut him up, and sealed the door upon him until a thousand
years were fulfilled, that he should not seduce the people,” that is, there-
fore He shut him up so long, that he should seduce them no more.

CHAPTER VIII.
Of the binding and loosing of the devil.

“ AFTER that,” says St John, “he must be loosed for a season.” Well,
although the devil be bound and locked up that he should not seduce
the Church, shall he therefore be loosed to seduce it? God forbid.
That Church which God predestinated, and settled before the world’s
foundation, whereof it is written, ‘God knoweth those that be His,
that the devil shall never seduce:” and yet it shall be on earth even at
the time of his loosing, as it has continued in successive estate ever
since it was erected, for by-and-by after He says that, “‘the devil shall
bring his seduced nations in arms against it, whose number shall be as
the sea sands: and they went up,” says he, “unto the plain of the
earth, and compassed the tents of the saints about, and the beloved
city, but fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.
And the devil that deceived them was cast into a lake of fire and brim-
stone, where the beast and the false prophets shall be tormented even
day and night for evermore.”

But this now belongs to the last judgment ; which I thought good to
recite, lest some should suppose that the devil being let loose again
for a season should either find no Church at all, or by his violence and
inducements should subvert all he finds. Wherefore the devil’s im-
prisonment during the whole time included in this book (that is, from
Christ’s first coming to His last) is not any particular restraint from
seducing the Church, because he could not injure the Church, were he
never so free: otherwise if his bondage were a set prohibition from
seduction what were his freedom but a full permission to seduce? which
God forbid should ever be! No, his binding is an inhibition of his full
power of temptation, which is the means of man’s being seduced, either
by his violence or his fraudulence. Which if he were suffered to practise
in that long time of infirmity, he would pervert and destroy the faith of
many such souls as God’s goodness will not suffer to be cast down. To
avoid this inconvenience, bound he is; and in the last and smallest
remainder of time shall he be loosed : for we read that he shall rage in
his greatest malice only three years and six months, and he shall hold
wars with such foes as all his enmity shall never be able either to conquer
or injure. But if he were not let loose at all, his malevolence would
be the less conspicuous, and the patience of the faithful the less glorious ;
briefly, it would be the less apparent unto how blessed an end God had
made use of his cursedness, in not debarring him absolutely from tempt-

Of the City of God. 257

ing the saints (though he be utterly cast out from their inward man)
that they might reap a benefit from his badness; and in binding him
firmly in the hearts of such as vow themselves his followers, lest if his
wicked envy had the full scope, he should enter in amongst the weaker
members of the Church, and by violence and subtlety together, deter and
dissuade them from their faith, their only means of salvation. Now in
the end, he shall be loosed, that the City of God may see what a potent
adversary she has conquered by the grace of her Saviour and Redeemer,
unto His eternal glory.

O what are we, and compare us unto the saints that shall live to see
this? when such an enemy shall be let loose unto them as we can
scarcely resist although he be bound! (although no doubt but Christ
has had some soldiers in these our times, who if they had lived in the
times to come, would have avoided all the devil’s traps by their true
discreet prudence, or have withstood them with undaunted patience).
This binding of the devil began when the Church began to spread from
Judea into other regions, and lasts yet, and shall do until his time be
expired: for men even in these times do refuse the chain wherein he
held them, infidelity, and turn unto God, and shall do, no doubt, unto
the world’s end. And then is he bound in respect of every private
man, when the soul that was his vassal, clears herself of him, nor ceases
his shutting up, when they die wherein he was shut: for the world
shali have a continual succession of the haters of Christianity, whilst the
earth endures, and in their hearts the devil shall ever be shut up. But
it may be a doubt whether any one shall turn unto God, during the
space of his three and a half years’ reign, for how can this stand good?
“ How can a man enter into a strong man’s house and spoil his goods,
except he first bind the strong man, and then spoil his house,” if he may
do it when the strong man is loose? ‘This seems to prove directly that
during that space, none shall be converted, but that the devil shall have
a continual fight with those that are in the faith already, of whom he
may perhaps conquer some certain number, but none of God’s pre-
destinated, not one. For it is not in vain that John, the author of this
Revelation, says in one of his epistles, concerning some apostates,
“They went out from us, but they were not of us: for if they had been
of us they would have continued with us.” But what then shall become
of the children? for it is incredible, that the Christians should have no
children during this space: or that if they had them, they would not
see them baptised by one means or other. How then shall these be
taken from the devil, the spoil of whose house no man can attain before
he bind him? So that it is more credible to avouch, that the Church
in that time shall neither want decrease nor augmentation, and that the
parents in standing stiffly for their children’s baptism (together with
others that shall but even then become believers) shall beat the devil
back in his greatest liberty; that is, they shall both wisely observe and

Il, R

258 St Augustine.

warily avoid his newest stratagems, and most secret underminings, and
by that means keep themselves clear of his merciless clutches. Not-
withstanding, that place of Scripture, “How can a man enter into a
strong man’s house,” &c., is true, for all that: and according there-
unto, the order was, that the strong should first be bound, and his
goods taken from him out of all nations, to multiply the Church in such
sort, that by the true and faithful understanding of the prophecies
that were to be fulfilled, they might take away his goods from him
when he was in his greatest freedom: for as we must confess, “that
because iniquity increaseth, the love of many shall be cold,” and that
many of them that are not written in the book of life shall fall before
the force of the raging newly loosed devil : so must we consider what
faithful shall then be found on the earth, and how divers shall even
then fly to the bosom of the Church, by God’s grace, and the Scripture’s
plainness: wherein amongst other things, that very end which they see
approaching is presaged : and that they shall be both more firm in belief
of what they rejected before, and also more strong to withstand the
greatest assault and sorest batteries. If this be so, his former binding
left his good to all future spoil, be he bound or loose, unto which end,
these words, “ How can a man enter into a strong man’s house,” &c.,
do principally tend.

CHAPTER IX.

What is meant by Christ’s reigning a thousand years with the saints, and
the difference between that and Fis eternal reign.
Now doubtless whilst the devil is thus bound, Christ reigns with His
saints the same thousand years, understood both after one manner,
that is, all the time from His first coming, not including that kingdom
whereof He says, ‘Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit you the
kingdom prepared for you:” for if there were not another reigning of
Christ with the saints in another place, whereof Himself says: “I am
with you alway unto the end of the world:” the Church now upon
earth should not be called His kingdom, or the kingdom of heaven:
for the Scribe that was taught unto the kingdom of God, lived in this
thousand years. ‘And the reapers shall take the tares out of the
Church, which grew (until harvest) together with the gocd corn:”
which parable He expounds, saying, “The harvest is at the end of the
world, and the reapers are the angels, as then the tares are gathered
and burned in the fire: so shall it be in the end of the world. TheSon
of Man shall send forth His angels, and they shall gather out of His king-
dom all things that offend.” What, does He speak here of that kingdom
where there is no offence? No, but of the Church that is here below.
He says further: ‘‘ Whosoever shall break one of these least command-
ments and teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of
heaven: but whosoever shall observe and teach them, the same shall be

Of the City of God. 280

called great in the kingdom of heaven.” Thus both these are done in
the kingdom of heaven, both the breach of the commandments, and
the keeping of them.

Then He proceeds: “ Except your righteousness exceed the righteous-
ness of the scribes and pharisees” (that is, of such as break what they
teach, and as Christ says elsewhere of them, “Ye say but do not”)
*“‘unless you exceed these,” that is, both teach and observe, “ ye shall
not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” Now the kingdom where the
keeper of the commandments, and the contemner, were both said to be,
is one, and the kingdom into which, “he that saith and doth not,” shall
not enter, is another. So then where both sorts are, the Church is, that
now is: but where the better sort is only, the Church is, as it shall be
hereafter, utterly exempt from evil. So that the Church now on earth
is both the kingdom of Christ, and the kingdom of heaven. The saints
reign with Him now, but not as they shall do hereafter: yet the tares
reign not with them though they grow in the Church amongst the good
seed. They reign with Him who do as the apostle says: “If ye then
be risen with Christ, seek the things which are above, where Christ sit-
teth at the right hand of God: set your affections on things which are
above, and not on things which are on earth,” of whom also he says, that
_ “their conversation is in heaven.” Lastly, they reign with Christ who
are with all His kingdom where He reigns. But how do they reign with
Him at all, who continuing below, until the world’s end, until His king-
dom be purged of all the tares, do nevertheless seek their own pleasures,
and not their Redeemer’s? This book therefore of St John speaks of
this kingdom of malice, wherein there are daily conflicts with the
enemy, sometimes with victory, and sometimes with foil, until the time
of that most peaceful kingdom approach, where no enemy shall ever
shew his face; this, and the first resurrection are the subject of the
apostle’s Revelation. For having said that the devil was bound for a
thousand years, and then was to be loosed for a while, he recapitulates
the gifts of the Church during the said thousand years.

“« And I saw thrones,” says he, ‘‘and they sat upon them, and judgment
was given unto them.” This may not be understood of the last judg-
ment: but by the thrones are meant the rulers’ places of the Church, and
the persons themselves by whom it is governed: and for the judgment
given them, it cannot be better explained than in these words, “ what-
soever ye bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever
ye loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” ‘Therefore says St Paul:
“What have I to do to judge them also that be without? do not ye
judge them that are within?” To proceed. ‘And I saw the souls of them
which were slain for the witness of Jesus and for the word of God:”
understand that which follows: “they reigned with Christ a thousand
years.” These were the martyrs’ souls, not having their bodies as yet,
for the souls of the godly are not excluded from the Church, which as it

260 St Augustine.

is now is the kingdom of God. Otherwise she would not mention them,

nor celebrate their memories at our communions “of the body and
blood of Christ :” nor were it necessary for us in our perils, to run unto
His baptism, or to be afraid to die without it: nor to seek reconciliation
to His Church, if a man have incurred anything that exacts repentance,
or burdens his conscience. Why do we those things, but that even such
as are dead in the faith, are members of God’s Church? Yet are they
not with their bodies, and yet nevertheless, their souls reign with Christ,
the whole space of this thousand years. And therefore we read else-
where in the same book, ‘Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord:”
even so says the Spirit, “for they rest from their labours, and their
works do follow them.” Thus then the Church reigns with Christ, first
“‘in the quick and the dead :” for Christ (as the apostle says) “that He
might henceforth rule both over the quick and the dead.” But the
apostle here names the souls of the martyrs only, because their kingdom
is most glorious after death, as having fought for the truth until death.

But this is but a taking of the part for the whole, for we take this place
to include all the dead that belong to Christ’s kingdom, which is, the
Church: but the sequel, ‘“ And which did not worship the beast, neither
his image, neither had taken his mark upon their foreheads, or on their
hands:” this is meant both of the “quick and dead.” Now although
we must make a more exact inquiry what this beast was, yet is it not
against Christianity to interpret it, “the society of the wicked, opposed
against the company of God’s servants, and against His holy city.”
Now his image, that is, his dissimulation, in such as profess religion,

and practise unbelief. They feign to be what they are not, and their
show (not their truth) procures them the name of Christians. For this
beast consists not only of the professed enemies of Christ and His
glorious hierarchy, but of the tares also, that in the world’s end are to
be gathered out of the very fields of His own Church. And who are
they that adore not the beast, but those on whom St Paul’s advice takes
effect, ‘‘ Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers”? These give him no
adoration, no consent, no obedience, nor take “his mark,” that is, the
brand of their own sin, upon their foreheads, by professing it, or on
their hands, by working according to it. They that are clear of this, be
they living, or be they dead, they reign with Christ all this whole time,

from the union unto Him, to the end of the time implied in the thousand
years. “The rest,” says St John, “shall not live, for now is the hour
when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that
hear it shall live, the rest shall not live:” but the addition, “until the
thousand years be finished,” implies, that they shall want life all the
time that they would have had it, in attaining it by passing through faith
from death to life. And therefore on the day of the general resurrec-
tion, they shall rise also, not unto life, but unto judgment, that is, unto
condemnation, which is truly called the second death, for he that lives

Of the City of God. 261

“not before the thousand years be expired, that is, he that hears not the

Saviour’s voice, and passes not from death to life, during the time of
the first resurrection, assuredly shall be thrown both body and soul
into the second death, at the day of the second resurrection. For Si
John proceeds plainly: “This,” says he, “is the first resurrection.
Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection,” and part
of it is his, who does not only arise from death in sin, but continues
firm in his resurrection. ‘On such,” says he, “the second death hath
no power :” but it has power over the rest of whom he said before, ‘“‘The
rest shall not live until the thousand years be finished :” because: that
in all that whole time meant by the thousand years, although that each
of them had a bodily life (at one time or other), yet they spent it, and
ended it without arising out of the death of iniquity, wherein the devil
held them: which resurrection would have been their only means té
have purchased them a part in the first resurrection, over which the
second death has no power.

CHAPTER X.

An answer to the objection of some, affirming that resurrection is proper
to the body only, and not to the soul,

Some object this, that resurrection pertains only to the body, and there-
fore the first resurrection is a bodily one: for that which falls (say they)
that may rise again: but the body falls by death (for so is the word
cadaver, ‘a carcase,’ derived of cada, ‘to fall’), evgo, rising again belongs
solely to the body, and not unto the soul. Well, but what will you answer
the apostle, that in as plain terms as may be, he calls the soul’s bettering,
a resurrection ? they were not revived in the outward man, but in the
inward, unto whom he said, “ If ye then be risen with Christ, seek the
things which are above,” which he explains elsewhere, saying, “ Like as
Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we
also should walk in newness of life.” Hence also is that place: “ Awake
thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give
thee light.” Now whereas they say, none can rise but those that fall,
ergo, the body only can arise, why can they not hear that shrill sound of
the spirit, “ Depart not from Him lest ye fall”? and again, “He
standeth or falleth to his own Master;” and further, ‘‘ Let him that
thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall;” I think these places
mean not of bodily falls, but of the soul’s. If then resurrection concern
them that fall, and that the soul may also fall; it must needs follow,
that the soul may rise again. Now St John having said, “On such the
second death shall have no power,” proceeds thus: “ But they shall be
the priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand
years.” Now this is not meant only of those whom the Church
peculiarly calls bishops and priests, but as we are all called Christians, be-
cause of our mystical chrism, ‘ our unction,’ so are we all priests in being

262 St Augustine.

the members of one Priest. Whereupon St Peter calls us, “A royal
priesthood, an holy nation.” And mark how briefly St John insinuates
the Deity of Christ in these words, “Of God, and of Christ,” that is, of
the Father and of the Son, yet as He was made the Son of Man, be-
cause of His servant’s shape, so in the same respect was He made a
Priest for ever according to the order of Melchizedek, whereof we
have spoken divers times in this work.

CHAPTER XI.

Of Gog and Magog, whom the devil (at the world’s end) shall stir up
against the Church of God.

“ AnD when the thousand years,” says he, ‘‘ are expired, Satan shall be
loosed out of his prison and shall go out to deceive the people which
are in the four quarters of the earth, even Gog and Magog, to gather
them together into battle whose number is as the sand of the sea.” So
then the aim of his deceit shall be war, for he used divers ways to
seduce before, and all tended to evil. He shall leave the dens of his
hate, and burst out into open persecution. ‘This shall be the last per-
secution, hard before the last judgment, and the Church shall suffer it,
all the earth over: the whole city of the devil shall afflict the City of
God at these times in all places.

This Gog and this Magog are not to be taken for any particular
barbarous nations, nor for the Goths and Messagoths, because of their
literal affinity, nor for any country’s beyond the Roman jurisdiction: he
means all the earth when he says, “The people which are in the four
quarters of the earth,” and then adds that they are Gog and Magog,
** Gog,” is ‘an house,’ and “ Magog,” ‘ of an house ;’ as if he said, ‘‘the
house and he that cometh out of the house.” So that they are the nations
wherein the devil was bound before, and now that he is loosened, comes
from thence, they being as the house, and he as coming out of the house.
But we refer both these names unto the nations, and neither unto him,
they are both the house, because the old enemy is hid and housed in
them: and they are of the house, when out of secret hate they burst
into open violence. Now where he says, ‘‘They went up into the
plain of the earth, and compassed the tents of the saints about, and the
beloved city,” we must not think they came to any one set place, as if
the saints’ tents were in any one certain nation, or the beloved city
either: no, this city is nothing but God’s Church, dispersed throughout
the whole earth, and being resident in all places, and amongst all nations,
as these words, “the plain of the earth,” do insinuate: there shall the
tents of the saints stand, there shall the beloved city stand: there shall
the fury of the persecuting enemy girt them in with multitudes of all
nations united in one rage of persecution: there shall the Church be
hedged in with tribulations, and shut up on every side: yet shall she
not forsake her warfare, which is signified by the word, tents.

Of the City of God. 263

CHAPTER XII.

Whether the fire falling from heaven, and devouring them, imply the last
torments of the wicked.

Bur his following words, “ Fire came down from God out of heaven,
and devoured them,” are not to be understood of that punishment,
which these words imply : ‘ Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting
fire:” for then shall they be cast into the fire ; and not fire be cast down
upon them. But the first fire insinuates the firmness of the saints that
will not yield unto the wills of the wicked : for heaven is the firmament,
whose firmness shall burn them up for very zeal and vexation, that they
cannot draw the servants of God unto the side of Antichrist. This is
the fire from God that shall burn them up, in that God has so confirmed
His saints that they become plagues unto their opposites. Now whereas
I said zeal, know that zeal is taken in good sense or in evil : in good, as
here: ‘‘ The zeal of Thine house has eaten me up:” in evil, as here:
“‘ Zeal hath possessed the ignorant people.” And now the fire shall eat
up these opposers, but not that fire of the last judgment. Besides if
the apostle by this fire from heaven do imply the plague that shall fall
upon such of Antichrist’s supporters as Christ at His coming shall find
left on earth, yet notwithstanding this shall not be the wicked’s last
plague, for that shall come upon them afterwards, when they are risen
again in their bodies.

CHAPTER XIII.
Whether it be a thousand years until the persecution under Antichrist.

Tus last persecution under Antichrist (as we said before, and the
_ prophet Daniel proves), shall last three years and a half: a little space !
but whether it belong to the thousand years of the devil’s bondage, and
the saints’ reign with Christ ; or be a space of time more than the other
fully accounted, isagreat question. If we hold the first opinion, then we
must say that the saints with Christ reigned longer than the devil was
bound. Indeed the saints shall reign with Him in the very heat of this
persecution, and stand out against the devil, when he is in greatest
power to molest them. But why then does the Scripture confine both
their reign and the devil’s bondage to the just sum of a thousand years,
seeing the devil’s captivity is out three years and six months sooner than
their kingdom with Christ ? Well, if we hold the latter opinion, that these
three years and a half are beyond the just thousand, to understand Saint
John that the reign of the saints with Christ and the devil’s imprison-
ment ended both at once (according to the thousand years which he
gives alike unto both) ; so that the said time of persecution belongs
neither to the time of the one nor the other: then we must confess that

264 St Augustine.

during this persecution the saints reign not with Christ. But what if
he dare affirm that His members do not reign with Him, when they do
most firmest of all keep their coherence with Him? at such time as
when the wars do rage, the more apparent is their constancy, and the
more frequent is the ascent from martyrdom to glory? If we say they
reign not because of the affliction that they endure, we may then infer
that in the times already past, if the saints were once afflicted, their
kingdom with their Saviour ceased: and so they whose souls this evan-
gelist beheld, namely of those who were slain for the testimony of Jesus,
and for the word of God, reigned not with Christ in their persecutions,
nor were they the kingdom of Christ, who were Christ’s most excellent
possessions. Oh, this is absurd and abominable! No, the victorious
souls of the glorious martyrs, subduing all earthly toils and tortures,
went up to reign with Christ (as they had reigned with Him before)
until the expiration of the thousand years, and then shall take their
bodies again, and so reign body and soul with Him for evermore. And
therefore, in this sore persecution of three years and a half, both the
souls of those that suffered for Christ before, and those that are then to
suffer, shall reign with Him until the world’s date be out, and the king-
dom begin that shall never have an end. Wherefore assuredly the saints’
reign with Christ shall continue longer than Satan’s bondage, for they
shall reign with God the Son, their King, three years and a half after
Satan be loosed. It remains then, that when we hear that “The priests
of God and of Christ” shall reign with Him a thousand years, and that
after a thousand years the devil shall be loosed, we must understand
that either the thousand years are decretively meant of the devil’s
bondage only, and not of the saints’ kingdom : or that the years of the
saints’ kingdom are longer, and they of the devil’s bondage shorter, or
that seeing three years and a half is but a little space, therefore it was
not counted, either because the saints’ reign had more than it conceived,
. or the devil's bondage less ; as we said of the four hundred years in
the sixteenth book. The time was more, yet that sum only was set
down, and this (if one observe it) is very frequent in the Scriptures.

CHAPTER XIV.

Satan and his followers condemned: a recapitulation of the resurrection
and the last judgment.

AFTER this rehearsal of the last persecution, he proceeds with the
success of the devil and his city at the last judgment. “And the
devil,” says he, “that deceived them was cast into a lake of fire
and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet shall be tormented
even day and night for evermore.” The beast, as I said before, is the
city of the wicked : his false prophet is either Antichrist or his image,

Of the City of God. | 265

the figment that I spoke of before. After all this, comes the last judg-
ment, in the second resurrection, to wit, the body’s, and this he relates
by way of recapitulation, as it was revealed unto him, ‘I saw,” says he,
“a great white throne, and One that sat on it, from whose face flew away
both the earth and heaven, and their place was no more found.” He
says not, and heaven and earth flew away from His face (as importing
their present flight), for that befell not until after the judgment, but,
“From whose face flew away both heaven and earth,” namely after-
wards, when the judgment shall be finished, then this heaven and this
earth shall cease, and a new world shall begin. But the old one shall
not be utterly consumed, it shall only pass through a universal change ;
and therefore the apostle says, ‘‘ The fashion of this world passeth away,
and I would have you without care.” The fashion goes away, not the
nature. Well, let us follow Saint John, who, after the sight of this throne,
&c., proceeds thus: “ And I saw the dead both great and small stand
before God, and the books were opened, and another book was opened
which is the book of life, and the dead were judged of those things which
were written in the books, according to their works.”

Behold, the opening of books, and of one book! This what it was,
he shews: which is the book of life. The other are the holy ones of
the Old and New Testament, that therein might be shewed what God
had commanded: but in the book of life were the commissions and
omissions of every man on earth, particularly recorded. If we should
imagine this to be an earthly book, such as ours are, who is he that
could imagine how huge a volume it were, or how long the contents of
it all, would be a reading? Shall there be as many angels as men, and
each one recite his deeds that were committed to his ward? then shall
there not be one book for all, but each one shall have one. Ay, but
the Scripture here mentions but one in this kind: it is therefore some
divine power infused into the consciences of each individual, calling all
their works (wonderfully and strangely) unto memory, and so making
each man’s knowledge accuse or excuse his own conscience: these are
all, and singular, judged in themselves. This power divine is called a
book, and fitly, for therein is read all the deeds that the doer has com-
mitted, by the working of this he remembers all: but the apostle, to
explain the judgment of the dead more fully, and to shew how it com-
prises great and small, he makes as it were a return to what he had
omitted (or rather deferred) saying, “And the sea gave up her dead
which were within it, and death and hell delivered up the dead which
were in them.” This was before that they were judged, and yet was
the judgment mentioned before, so that as I said, he returns to his
intermission, and having said thus much, ‘“‘ The sea gave up her dead,”
&c. As before, he now proceeds in the true order, saying, “ And
they were judged, every man according to his works.” This he repeats
again here, to shew the order which was of events in the judgment whereof

266 St Augustine.

he had spoken before in these words, “And the dead were judged
according to those things which were written in the books, according to
their works.”

CHAPTER XV.
Of the dead, whom the sea, and death, and hell shall give up to judgment.

But what dead are they that the sea shall give up? for all that die in
the sea are not kept from hell, neither are their bodies kept in the sea:
shall we say that the sea keeps the dead that were good, and hell
those that were evil; horrible absurdity! Who is so stupid as to believe
this? No, the sea here is fitly understood to imply the whole world,
Christ therefore intending to shew that those whom He found on earth
at the time appointed, should be judged with those that were to rise
again, calls them dead men, and yet good men, unto whom it was
said, “ Ye are dead, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” But
them He calls evil of whom He said, “ Let the dead bury their dead.”
Besides, they may be called dead, in that their bodies are death’s
objects: wherefore the Apostle says: “The body is dead, because of
sin, but the spirit is life for righteousness’ sake :” shewing that in a mortal
man there is both a dead body and a living spirit ; yet said he not, “the
body is mortal, but dead,” although according to his manner of speech,
he had called bodies mortal, but a little before. Thus then the sea gave
up her dead; the world gave up all mankind that as yet had not
approached the grave. And death and hell (quoth he) “Gave up the
dead” which were in them. The sea gave up its, for as they were then
so were they found; but death and hell had theirs first called to the
life which they had left, and then gave them up. Perhaps it were not
sufficient to say death only, or hell only, but he says both, “death and
hell,” death for such as might only die, and not enter hell, and hell for
such as did both; for if it be not absurd to believe that the ancient
fathers believing in Christ to come, were all at rest, in a place far
from all torments (and yet within hell), until Christ’s passion and descent
thither set them at liberty; then surely the faithful that are already
redeemed by that passion never know what hell means, from their
death until they arise and receive their rewards. “And they judged
every one according to their deeds ;” a brief declaration of the judg-
ment. “And death and hell,” saith he, “ were cast into the lake of fire ;”
this is the second death, “death and hell” are but the devil and his
angels, the only authors of death and hell’s torments. This he did but
recite before, when he said, ‘‘ And the devil that deceived them was cast
into a lake of fire and brimstone ;” but his mystical addition, “ Where the
beast and the false prophet shall be tormented,” &c. That he shews
plainly here: “ Whosoever was not found written in the book of life, was
cast into the lake of fire.” Now as for the book of life, it is not meant
to put God in remembrance of anything, lest He should forget, but it

Of the City of God. 267

shews who are predestinated unto salvation, for God is not ignorant of
their number, neither reads He this book to find it; His prescience is
rather the book itself wherein all are written that is foreknown.

CHAPTER XVI.
Of the new heaven and the new earth,

THE judgment of the wicked being past as he foretold, the judgment
of the good must follow, for he has already explained what Christ said
in brief, ‘‘ They shall go into everlasting pain ;” now he must express
the sequel: “And the righteous into life eternal.” ‘And I saw,” says
he, “‘a new heaven and a new earth.” The first heaven and earth were
gone, and so was the sea, for such was the order described before by
him when he saw “the great white throne,” and One sitting upon itf
from whose face they fled. So then they that were not in the book o,
life being judged, and cast into eternal fire, what, or where it is, I hold
is unknown to all but those unto whom it please the Spirit to reveal
it; then shall this world lose its form by worldly fire, as it was formerly
destroyed by earthly water. ‘Then (as I said) shall all the world’s cor-
tuptible qualities be burnt away, all those that held correspondence with
our corruption, shall be made fit for immortality, that the world being
so substantially renewed, may be fitly adapted unto the men whose sub-
stances are renewed also. But for that which follows, ‘‘There was no
more sea,” whether it imply that the sea should be dried up by that
universal conflagration, or be transformed into a better essence, I can-
not easily determine. Heaven and earth, we read, “shall be renewed,”
but as concerning the sea, I have not read any such matter, that I can
remember : unless that other place in this book, of that which he calls
as it were a sea of glass, like unto crystal, import any such alteration.
But in that place he speaks not of the world’s end, neither does he
say directly a sea, but, as a sea. Notwithstanding, it is the prophet’s
guise to speak of truths in mystical manner, and to mix truths and
types together, and so he might say, “There was no more sea,” in the
same sense that he said, “the sea shall give up her dead,” intending
that there should be no more turbulent times in the world, which he
insinuates under the word “ sea.”

CHAPTER XVII.

Of the glorification of the Church, after death, for ever.
“‘ AnD I, John,” said he, “saw that holy city, New Jerusalem, coming
down from God out of Heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her
husband. And I heard a great voice out of Heaven saying, Behold,
the Tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and
they shall be His people, and He Himself shall be their God with
them. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there

268 St Augustine.

shall be no more death, neither tears, neither crying, neither shall there
be any more pain, for the former things are passed away. And He that
sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new,” &c.

This city is said to come from heaven, because the grace of God
that founded it is heavenly, as God says in Isaiah: “Iam the Lord
that made thee.” This grace of His came down from heaven even
from the beginning, and since, the citizens of God have had their
increase by the same grace, given by the Spirit, from heaven, in the
fount of regeneration. But at the “last judgment of God” by His
Son Christ, this only shall appear in a state so glorious, that all the
ancient shape shall be cast aside: for the bodies of each member shall
cast aside their old corruption, and put on a new form of immortality.
For it were too gross impudence to think that this was meant of the
thousand years aforesaid: wherein the Church is said “to reign with
Christ :” because he says directly, “God shall wipe away all tears from
their eyes: and there shall be no more death, neither sorrows, neither
crying, neither shall there be any more pain.” Who is so obstinately
absurd, or so absurdly obstinate as to aver, that any one saint (much
less the whole society of them) shall pass this transitory life without
fears or sorrows, or ever has passed it, clear of them? seeing that the
more holy his desires are, and the more zealous his holiness, the more
tears shall bedew his orisons. Is it not the heavenly Jerusalem that
says, “My tears have been my meat day and night”? and again:
“TI cause my bed every night to swim, and water my couch with tears,”
and besides: “‘ My sorrow is renewed”? Are not they His sons that
bewail that which they will not forsake? but be clothed in it that their
mortality may be reinvested with eternity ? and having “the first fruits
of the Spirit do sigh in themselves, waiting for the adoption [that is],
the redemption of their bodies”? Was not St Paul one of the heavenly
city, nay, and that the rather in that he took so great care for the
earthly Israelites? And when shall death have to do in that city, but
when they may say: “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is
thy victory? The sting of death is sin.” This could not be said
there where death had no sting: but as for this world, St John himself
says: “ If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and there is no
truth in us.” And in this his Revelation, there are many things written
for the exercising of the reader’s understanding, and there are but few
things, whose understanding may be an induction unto the rest: for he
repeats the same thing, so many ways, that it seems wholly pertinent
unto another purpose: and indeed it may often be found as spoken in
another kind. But here where he says: “God shall wipe away all
tears from their eyes,” &c.: this is directly meant of the world to come,
and the immortality of the saints, for there shall be no sorrow, no
tears, nor cause of sorrow or tears ; if anyone thinks this place obscure,
let him look for no plainness in the Scriptures,

Of the City of Goa. 269

CHAPTER XVIII.
St Peter's doctrine of the resurrection of the dead,

Now let us hear what St Peter says of this judgment. “There shall
come,” says he, “in the last days, mockers, which will walk after their
lusts, and say, Where is the promise of His coming? For, since the
fathers died, all things continue alike from the beginning of the creation.
For this, they (willingly) know not, that the heavens were of old, and
the earth that was of the water, and by the water by the Word of God,
wherefore the world, that then was, perished, overflowed with the water.
But the heavens and earth that now are, are kept by the same Word in
store, and reserved unto fire against the day of judgment; and of the
destruction of ungodly men. Dearly beloved, be not ignorant of this,
that one day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years
as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning His promise (as some
men count slackness), but is patient toward us, and would have no
man to perish, but would have all men to come to repentance. But the
day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in the which the
heavens shall pass away with a noise, and the elements shall melt with
heat, and the earth with the works that are therein shall be burnt up.
Seeing, therefore, all these must be dissolved, what manner of persons
ought ye to be in holy conversation and godliness, longing for, and
hasting unto the coming of the day of God, by the which, the heavens
being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with heat.
But we look for a new heaven, and a new earth according to His
promise wherein dwelleth righteousness.” Thus far. Now here is no
mention of the resurrection of the dead: but enough concerning the
destruction of the world, where his mention of the world’s destruction
already passed gives us sufficient warning to believe the dissolution to
come. For the world that was then perished (says he) at that time
not only the earth, but that part of the air also which the water
possessed, or got above, and so consequently almost all those airy
regions, which he calls the heaven, or rather (in the plural, the heavens)
but not the spheres wherein the sun and the stars have their places, they
were not touched: the rest was altered by humidity, and so the earth
perished, and lost its first form by the Deluge. But the heavens and
earth (says he) that now are, are kept by the same Word in store,
and reserved unto fire against the day of judgment, and of the destruc-
tion of ungodly men. Therefore the same heaven and earth that re-
mained after the Deluge, are they that are reserved unto the fire afore-
said, unto the day of judgment and perdition of the wicked. For
because of this great change he hesitates not to say, there shall be a
destruction of men also, whereas, indeed, their essences shall never be
annihilate although they live in torment. Yea, but (may some say)
if this old heaven and earth shall at the world’s end be burned before

270 St Augustine.

the new ones be made, where shall the saints be in the time of this con-
flagration, since they have bodies, and therefore must be in some bodily
place? We may answer, in the upper parts, whither the fire as then
shall no more ascend, than the water did in the Deluge. For at this
day the saints’ bodies shall be movable whither their wills do please:
nor need they fear the fire, being now both immortal and incorruptible :
for the three children though their bodies were corruptible, were notwith-
standing preserved from losing an hair by the fire, and might not the
saints’ bodies be preserved by the same power ?

CHAPTER XIX.

Saint Pauls words to the Thessalonians: of the manifestations of Ant-
christ, whose times shall immediately forerun the day of the Lord.

I sEE I must over-pass many worthy sayings of the saints concerning
this day ; lest my work should grow to too great a volume: but yet
Saint Paul’s I may by no means omit. Thus says he: “ Now I beseech
you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our
assembling unto Him, that you be not suddenly moved from your mind,
nor troubled neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter, as if it were
from us, as though the day of Christ were at hand. Let no man deceive
you by any means, for that day shall not come except there come a fugi-
tive first, and that that man of sin be revealed, even the son of perdi-
tion: which is an adversary, and exalteth himself against all is called
God, or that is worshipped : so that he sitteth as God in the Temple of
God, shewing himself that he is God. Remember ye not that when I
was yet with you I told you these things? And now ye know what
withholdeth that he might be revealed in his due time. For the mystery
of iniquity does already work: only he which now withholdeth shall
let till he be taken out of the way: and the wicked man shall be
revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of His mouth
and shall abolish with the brightness of His coming: even Him
whose coming is by the working of Satan, with all power, and signs
and lying wonders, and in all deceivableness of unrighteousness
amongst them that perish, because they received not the love of the
truth that they might be saved. And therefore God shall send them
strong delusion, that they should believe a lie, that all they might
be condemned which believe not in the truth, but had pleasure in un-
righteousness.” This is doubtless meant of Antichrist and the day of
judgment. For this day he says shall not come until that Antichrist
be come before it, he that is called here a fugitive from the face of the
Lord : for if all the ungodly deserve this name, why not he most of all ?
But in what Temple of God he is to sit as God, it is doubtful: whether
it be the ruined Temple of Solomon, or in the Church. For it cannot
be any heathen temple. Saint Paul would never call any such the

Of the City of God. 271

Temple of God. Some, therefore, do by Antichrist understand the
devil and all his domination, together with the whole multitude of
his followers: and imagine that it were better to say he shall sit
in Zemplum dei, as the Temple of God, that is, as though he were the
Church : as we say Sede¢ in amicum, ‘he sits as a friend,’ and so forth.
But whereas he says, “ And now ye know what withholdeth,” that is,
what stays him from being revealed; this implies that they knew
it before, and therefore he does not relate it here. Wherefore we that
know not what they knew, do strive to get understanding of his know-
ledge of the apostle, but we cannot: because his addition makes it the
more mysterious. For what is this: “The mystery of iniquity doth
already work, only he that withholdeth shall let till he be taken out of
the way”? ‘Truly, I confess, that I am utterly ignorant of his meaning:
but what others’ conjectures are hereof I will not be silent in. Some
say Saint Paul spoke of the state of Rome, and would not be plainer,
lest he should incur a slander that he wished Rome’s Empire evil
fortune, whereas it was hoped that it should continue for ever. By
“the mystery of iniquity ” they say he meant Nero, whose deeds were
great resemblances of Antichrist’s, so that some think that he shall rise
again and be the true Antichrist. Others think he never died, but
vanished, and that he lives (in that age and vigour wherein he was sup-
posed to be slain) until the time come that he shall be revealed and
restored to his kingdom.

But this is too presumptuous an opinion. Only these words, “He
that withholdeth shall let till he be taken out of the way,” may not
unfitly be understood of Rome, as if he had said, “He that now
reigneth shall reign until he be taken away, and then the wicked man
shall be revealed.” This is Antichrist, no man doubts it. Now some
understand these words, “Now ye know what withholdeth,” and “the
mystery of iniquity doth already work ;” to be meant only of the false
Christians in the Church, who shall increase unto a number which shall
make Antichrist a great people: this, say they, is the mystery of iniquity,
for it is yet unrevealed: and therefore does the apostle encourage the
faithful to persevere, saying, ‘‘ Let him that holdeth, hold,” for thus they
take this place, “until he be taken out of the way,” that is, until Anti-
christ and his troups (this unrevealed mystery of iniquity) depart out of
the midst of the Church. And unto this do they hold St John’s words ©
to belong : “Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that
Antichrist shall come, even now there are many Antichrists, whereby we
know that it is the last time. They went out from us but they were not
of us: for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us.”
Thus (say thay) even as before the end in this time which St John calls
“the last of all,” many heretics (whom he calls many Antichrists) went
out of the Church, so likewise hereafter all those that belong not unto
Christ but unto the last Antichrist shall depart out of the midst of

272 St Augustine.

Christ’s flock, ‘‘and then shall the man of sin be revealed.” Thus one
takes the apostle’s words one way, and another another way, but this he
means assuredly, that Christ will not come to judge the world until
Antichrist be here before Him to seduce the world (although it be God’s
secret judgment that he should thus seduce it), for His coming shall
be (as it is said) “‘ by the working of Satan with all power, and signs,
and lying wonders, and in all deceivableness of unrighteousness
amongst them that perish. For then shall Satan be let loose, and
work by this Antichrist unto all men’s admiration, and yet all in false-
hood.” Now here is a doubt, whether they be called lying wonders
because he does but delude the eyes in these miracles, and does not
what he seems to do, or because that although they may be real actions,
yet the end of them all is to draw ignorant mankind into this false con-
ceit that such things could not be done but by a divine power, because
they know not that the devil shall have more power given him then,
than ever he had before. For the fire that fell from heaven, and burnt
the house and goods of holy Job, and the whirlwind that smote the
building and slew his children, were neither of them false apparitions :
yet were they the devil’s effects, by the power that God had given him.

Therefore, in what respect these are called lying wonders, shall be
then more apparent. Howsoever, they shall seduce such as deserve to be
seduced, because they received not the love of the truth that they might
be saved: whereupon the apostle adds this: ‘“‘ Therefore shall God
send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie.” God shall
send it: because His just judgment permits it, though the devil’s
malevolent desire performs it. That all they might be condemned
which believe not in the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness,

Thus being condemned, they are seduced, and being seduced, con-
demned. But their seducement is by the secret judgment of God,

justly secret, and secretly just; even His that has judged continually,
ever since the world began. But their condemnation shall be by the
last and manifest judgment of Jesus Christ, He that judges most justly
and was most unjustly judged Himself.

CHAPTER XX.
St Paul's doctrine of the resurrection of the dead.

Bur the apostle says nothing of the resurrection of the dead in this
place: marry in another place he says thus, “I would not have you
ignorant, brethren, concerning those which sleep, that ye sorrow not
even as those which have no hope: for if we believe that Jesus died,
and is risen again, even so also them which sleep in Jesus, will God
bring with Him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that
we which live and are remaining at the coming of the Lord, shall not

Of the City of God. 273

prevent those that sleep. For the Lord Himself shall descend from
heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the
trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall arise first: then shall we
which live and remain, be caught up with them also in the clouds to
meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”
Here the apostle makes a plain demonstration of the future resurrection,
when Christ shall come to sit in judgment over both quick and dead.
But it is an ordinary question whether those whom Christ shall find
alive at His coming (whom the apostle admits himself and those with
him to be) shall ever die at all, or go immediately in a moment up with
the rest to meet Christ, and so be forthwith immortalised. It is not
impossible for them both to die and live again in their very ascension
through the air. For these words: “And so shall we ever be with
the Lord,” are not to be taken as if we were to continue in the air with
Him, for He shall not stay in the air, but go and come through it.
We meet Him coming, but not staying: but so shall we “ever be with
Him,” that is, in immortal bodies, wherever our stay be. And in this
sense the apostle seems to urge the understanding of this question to
be this, that those whom Christ shall find alive, shall nevertheless both
die and revive, where He says, “ In Christ shall all be made alive:” and
upon this, by-and-by after, “That which thou sowest, is not quickened
except it die.” How then shall those whom Christ shall find alive be
quickened in Him by immortality, unless they do first die, if these words
of the apostle be true? If we say that the sowing is meant only of those
bodies that are returned to the earth, according to the judgment laid
upon our transgressing forefathers : “ Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt
thou return:” then we must confess, that neither that place of St Paul
nor this of Genesis concerns their bodies whom Christ at His coming
shall find in the body : for those are not sown, because they neither go
to the earth, nor return from it, howsoever they have a little stay in the
air, or otherwise taste not of any death at all. But now the apostle has
another place of the resurrection. ‘‘ We shall all rise again,” says he,
or (as it is in some copies), “ We shall all sleep.”

So then, death going alway before resurrection, and sleep in this place
implying nothing but death, how shall all rise again, or sleep, if so many
as Christ shall find living upon earth, shall neither sleep nor rise again ?
Now therefore, if we do but avouch that the saints whom Christ shall
find in the flesh, and who shall meet Him in the air, do in this rapture
leave their bodies for a while, and then take them on again ; the doubt
is cleared both in the apostle’s first words, “ That which thou sowest is
not quickened, except it die:” as also in his latter, “ We shall all rise
- again,” or, ‘‘ We shall all sleep:” for they shall not be quickened unto
immortality, unless they first taste of death: and consequently have a
share in the resurrection by means of this their little sleep. And why is
it incredible that those bodies should be sown, and revived immortally

S

294 St Augustine.

in the air, when we believe the apostle, where he says plainly, that the
resurrection shall be in the twinkling of an eye, and that the dust of the
most aged body, shall in one moment unite to retain those members,
that henceforth shall never perish: nor let us think that that place of
Genesis, “‘ Dust thou art,” &c., concerns not the saints, for all that their
dead bodies return not to the earth, but are both dead and revived whilst
they are in the air.

“To dust shalt thou return,” that is, thou shalt by loss of life, become
that which thou wast ere thou hadst life. It was earth in whose face the
Lord breathed the breath of life. when man became a living soul: so
that it might be said: “ Thou art living dust, which thou wast not, and
thou shalt be lifeless dust, as thou wast.” Such are all dead bodies even
before putrefaction, and such shall they be (if they die) wheresoever they
die, being void of life, which notwithstanding they shall immediately
return unto. So then shall they return unto earth, in becoming earth,
of living men; as that returns to ashes which is made of ashes, that
unto putrefaction which is putrefied, that into a pot which of earth is
made a pot, and a thousand other such like instances. But how this
shall be, we do but conjecture now, nor shall know till we see it.

That there shall be a resurrection of the flesh at the coming of Christ
to judge the quick and the dead, all that are Christians must confidently
believe: nor is our faith in this point any way frivolous, although we
know not how this shall be effected. But, as I said before, so mean I
still, to proceed in laying down such places of the Old Testament now,
as concern this last judgment, as far as need shall be; which it shall
not be altogether so necessary to stand much upon, if the reader do but
aid his understanding with that which is passed before.

CHAPTER XXI.
Isaiah's doctrine concerning the judgment and the resurrection.

“THE dead,” says the prophet Isaiah, “ shall arise again ; and they shall
arise again that were in the graves ; and all they shall be glad that are in
the earth ; for the dew that is from Thee, is health to them, and the land
(or earth) of the wicked shall fall.” All this belongs to the resurrec-
tion. And whereas he says, “the land of the wicked shall fall,” that is
to be understood by their bodies which shall be ruined by damnation.
But now if we look well into the resurrection of the saints, these words,
“the dead shall rise again,” belong to the first resurrection, and these,
“they shall arise again that were in the graves,” unto the second. And
as for those holy ones whom Christ shall meet in their flesh, this is fitly
pertinent unto them: “All they shall be glad that are in the earth: for
the dew that is from Thee, is health unto them :” by health in this place,
is meant immortality, for that is the best health, and needs no daily
refection to preserve it.

Of the City of God. 275

The same prophet also speaks of the judgment, both to the comfort of
the godly, and the terror of the wicked. ‘Thus saith the Lord: Behold,
I will incline unto them as a flood of peace: and the glory of the Gen-
tiles like a flowing stream: then shall ye suck: ye shall be borne upon
her shoulders, and be joyful upon her knees. As one whom his mother
comforteth so will I comfort you, and ye shall be comforted in Jeru-
salem. And when ye see this your heart shall rejoice and your bones
shall flourish as an herb: and the hand of the Lord shall be known
unto His servants, and His indignation against His enemies. For be-
hold, the Lord will come with fire, and His chariots like a whirlwind,
that He may recompense His anger with wrath, and His indignation
with a flame of fire, for the Lord will judge with fire, and with His
sword, all flesh, and the slain of the Lord shall be many.” Thus you
hear, as touching His promises to the good, He inclines to them “like
a flood of peace:” that is, in all peaceful abundance ; and such shall
our souls be watered withal at the world’s end (but of this in the last
book before). This He extends unto them to whom He promises such
bliss, that we may conceive that this flood of beatitude does sufficiently
bedew all the whole region of heaven, where we are to dwell. But be-
cause He bestows the peace of incorruption upon corruptible bodies,
therefore He says, “ He will incline,” as if He came downwards from
above, to make mankind equal with the angels.

By Jerusalem we understand not her that serves with her children,
but our free mother (as the apostle says) which is eternal, and above ;
where after the shocks of all our sorrows be past, we shall be comforted,
and rest like infants in her glorious arms, and on her knees. Then
shall our rude ignorance be invested in that unaccustomed blessedness ;
then shall we see this, and our heart shall rejoice: what shall we see?
it is not set down. But what is it but God, that so the Gospel might be
fulfilled : ‘‘ Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” And
all that bliss which we now believe but, like frail men, in far less mea-
sure than it is, we shall then behold and see: here we hope, there we
shall enjoy. But lest we should imagine that those causes of joy con-
cerned only the spirit: He adds, “ And your bones shall flourish as an
herb.” Here is a plain touch at the resurrection, relating as it were,
what He had omitted.

These things shall not be done even then when we do see them ; but
when they are already come to pass, then shall we see them. For He

_ had spoken before of the new heaven and earth in His relations of the

{

promises that were in the end to be performed to the saints, saying, “I
will create new heavens and a new earth, and the former shall not be
remembered nor come into mind: but be you glad and rejoice therein ;
for behold I will create Jerusalem as a rejoicing, and her people as a
joy, and I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in My people, and the voice
of weeping shall be heard no more in her, nor the voice of crying,” &c.

276 St Augustine.

This now some apply to the proof of Chiliasm: because that the pro-
phet’s manner is to mingle tropes with truths, to exercise the reader in
a fit inquest of their spiritual meanings ; but carnal sloth contents itself
with the literal sense only, and never seeks further. Thus far of the pro-
phet’s words before that he wrote what we have in hand : now let us go
forward again. ‘“‘ And your bones shall flourish like an herb :” that he
means only the resurrection of the saints in this, his addition proves:
“And the hand of the Lord shall be known amongst His servants.”
What is this, but His hand, distinguishing His servants from such as
scorn Him? of those it follows, “And his indignation against His
enemies :” or, as another interprets it, “against the unfaithful.” This
is no threatening, but the effect of all His threatenings. “ For behold,”
says he, ‘‘the Lord will come with fire, and His chariots like a whirl-
wind, that He may recompense His anger with wrath, and His indigna-
tion with a flame of fire. For the Lord will judge with fire, and with
His sword, all flesh, and the slain of the Lord shall be many,” whether
they perish by fire or sword, or whirlwind, all denounce but the pain of
the judgment, for he says that “God shall come as a whirlwind,” that is,
unto such as His coming shall be penal unto. Again, His chariots,
being spoken in the plural, imply His ministering angels. But whereas
he says that “all flesh shall be judged by this fire and sword,” we do
except the saints, and imply it only to those “which mind earthly
things,” and such minding is deadly: and such as those of whom God
says, “‘ My Spirit shall not alway strive with man, because he is but
flesh.” But these words, “ The slain ” (or wounded) “of the Lord shall
be many ;” this implies the second death.

The fire, the sword, and the stroke, may all be understood in a good
sense : for God has said, “ He would send fire into the world:” and the
Holy Ghost descended in the shape of fiery tongues. Again, “I came
not,” says Christ, “to send peace, but the sword.” And the Scripture
calls God’s Word “a two-edged sword:” because of the two Testa-
ments. Besides, the Church, in the Canticles, says, “that she is
wounded with love,” even as shot, with the force of love. So that this
is plain, and so is this that we read, “that the Lord shall come as an
Avenger,” &c.

So then the prophet proceeds with the destruction of the wicked,
under the types of such as in the old law forbore not the forbidden
meats, rehearsing the graciousness of the New Testament from Christ’s
first coming, even unto this judgment we have now in hand. For first,
he tells how God says that “‘ He cometh to gather the nations, and how
they shall come to see His glory. For all have sinned,” says the
apostle, ‘and are come short of the glory of God.” He says also that
He will leave signs amongst them to induce them to believe in Him, and
that He will send His elect into many nations, and far islands that
never heard of His name, te nreach His glory to the Gentiles, and to

Of the City of God. 277

bring their brethren, that is, the brethren of the elect Israel (of whom
He spake) into His presence: to bring them for an offering unto God
in chariots, and upon horses ; that is, by the ministry of men or angels,
unto holy Jerusalem, that is now spread throughout the earth in her
faithful citizens. For these, when God assists them, believe ; and when
they believe, they come unto Him. Now God in a simile compares
them to the children of Israel that offered unto Him His sacrifices with
psalms in the Temple: as the Church does now in all places: and He
promises to take of them for priests and for Levites, which now we see
He does. For He has not observed fleshly kindred in His choice now,
as He did in the time of Aaron’s priesthood: but according to the New
Testament, where Christ is Priest after the order of Melchisedek, He
selects each of His priests according to the merit which God’s grace has
stored his soul with: as we now behold: and these priests are not to
be respected of for their places (for those the unworthy do often hold),
but for their sanctities, which are not common both to good and bad.

Now the prophet having thus opened God’s mercies to the Church,
adds the several ends that shall befall the good and bad in the last
judgment, in these words: “ As the new heavens and the new earth
which I shall make shall remain before Me, saith the Lord: even so
shall your seed and your name. And from month to month, and from
Sabbath to Sabbath shall all flesh come to worship before Me, saith the
Lord. And they shall go forth and look upon the members of the men
that have transgressed against Me ; for their worm shall not die, neither
shall their fire be quenched ; and they shall be an abhorring unto all
flesh.” Thus ends the prophet his book, with the end of the world.
Some in this place for members, read carcase, hereby intimating the
body’s evident punishment, though indeed a carcase is properly nothing
but dead flesh: but those bodies shall be living, otherwise how should
they be sensible of pain? unless we say they are dead bodies, that is,
their souls are fallen into the second death, and so we may fitly call
them carcases. And thus are the prophet’s former words also to be
taken, “ The land of the wicked shall fall.” Cadaver, ‘a carcase,’ all
know, comes from cado, ‘to fall.’ Now the translators by saying the
carcases of the men, do not exclude women from this damnation, but
they speak as by the better sex, being that woman was taken out of man.
But note especially, that where the prophet, speaking of the blessed,
says, “ all flesh shall come to worship ;” he means not all men (for the
greater number shall be in torments) but some shall come out of all
nations, to adore Him in the heavenly Jerusalem. But as I was saying,
since here is mention of the good by flesh, and of the bad, by carcases ;
verily after the resurrection of the flesh, our faith in which these words
do confirm, “ that which shall confine both the good and bad unto their
last limits,” shall be the judgment to come.

278 St Augustine.

CHAPTER XXII.
Tow the saints shall go forth to see the pains of the wicked.

But how shall the good go forth to see the bad plagued? Shall they
leave their blessed habitations, and go corporally to hell, to see them
face to face? God forbid: no, they shall go in knowledge. For this
implies that the damned shall be without, and for this cause the Lord
calls their place utter darkness, opposite unto that ingress allowed the
good servant in these words, “ Enter into thy Master's joy ;” and lest
the wicked should be thought to go in to be seen, rather than the good
should go out by knowledge to see them, being to know that which
is without: for the tormented shall never know what is done in the
Lord’s joy: but they that are in that joy, shall know what is done in the
utter darkness: therefore says the prophet, “they shall go forth;” in
that they shall know what is without, for if the prophets through that
small part of divine inspiration could know these things before they
came to pass: how then shall not these immortals know them being
passed, seeing that in them the Lord is all in all? Thus shall the
saints be blessed both in seed and name. In seed, as St John says,
“ And his seed remaineth in him.” In name, as Isaiah says, “So shall
your name continue; from month to month, and from Sabbath to
Sabbath shall they have rest upon rest:” passing thus from old and
temporal types to new and everlasting truths. But the pains of the
wicked, that eternal worm, and that never dying fire, is diversely ex-
pounded, éither in reference to the body only, or to the soul only, or
the fire to belong to the body really, and the worm to the soul figura-
tively, and this last is the likeliest of the three. But here is no place to
discuss particulars. We must end this volume, as we promised, with the

judgment, the separation of good from bad, and the rewards and punish-
ments accordingly distributed.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Daniel's prophecy of Antichrist ; of the judgment, and of the kingdom of
the saints.

OF this judgment Daniel prophesied, saying, “ that Antichrist shall fore-
run it:” and so he proceeds to the eternal kingdom of the saints : for
having in a vision beheld the four beasts, types of the four monarchies,
and the fourth overthrown by a king which all confess to be Anti-
christ ; and then seeing the eternal empire of the Son of Man (Christ)
to follow, “ Daniel,” says he, “was troubled in spirit, in the midst of
my body, and the visions of mine head made me afraid. Therefore I
came to one of them that stood by, and asked him the truth of all this :
so he told me and shewed me the interpretation of these things.
These four great beasts are four kings, which shall arise out of the earth,

Of the City of God. 279

but the saints of the Most High shall take the kingdom, and possess it
for ever, even for ever and ever. After this, I would know the truth of
the fourth beast which was so unlike the other, very fearful, whose teeth
were of iron, and his nails of brass, which devoured, brake in pieces,
and stamped the rest under his feet. Also to know of the ten horns
that were on his head, and of the other that came up, before whom three
fell, and of the horn that had eyes, and of the mouth that spake pre-
sumptuous things, whose look was more stout than his fellows: I beheld,
and the same horn made battle against the saints, yea and prevailed
against them, until the Ancient of Days came, and judgment was given to
the saints of the Most High: and the time approached that the saints
possessed the kingdom.”

All this Daniel inquired, and then he proceeds: ‘Then he said, the
fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom on the earth, which shall be
unlike to all the kingdoms and shall devour the whole earth, and shall
tread it down and shall break it in pieces. And the ten horns are ten
kings that shall rise, and another shall rise after them, and he shall be
unlike to the first, and he shall subdue three kings, and shall speak
words against the Most High, and shall consume the saints of the
Most High, and think that he may change times and laws; and
they shall be given into his hand until a time, and half a time.
But the judgment shall sit and they shall take away his dominion,
to consume and destroy it unto the end: and the kingdom, and
dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven
shall be given unto the holy people of the Most High whose kingdom is
an everlasting kingdom, and all powers shall serve and obey Him. Even
this is the end of the matter. I, Daniel, had many cogitations which
troubled me, and my countenance changed in me but I kept the matter
in mine heart.” These four kingdoms, some hold to be those of the
Assyrians, Persians, Macedonians, and Romans.

How fitly, read Jerome’s commentaries upon Daniel, and there you
may have full instruction. But that Antichrist’s kingdom shall be most
cruel against the Church (although it last but a while) until the saints
receive the sovereignty, none that reads this place, can make question
of. The time, times and half a time is three years and a half; a year,
two years and half a year, and this is declared by a number of days
afterwards, and by the numbers of months in other places of the Scrip-
tures. ‘Times in this place seems indefinite; but the dual number is
here used by the LXX. which the Latins have not: but both the Greeks
and Hebrews have. ‘Times’ then stands but for ‘two times.’ Now Iam
afraid (indeed) that we deceive ourselves in the ten kings whom Anti-
christ shall find, as ten men, by our account, but there are not so many
kings in the Roman monarchy, so that Antichrist may come upon us
ere we be aware. What if this number imply the fulness of regality,
which shall be expired ere he come, as the numbers of a thousand, a

280 St Augustine.

hundred, seven, and divers more do oftentimes signify the whole ofa thing ?
T leave it to judgment. To go on with Daniel, “There shall be a time
of trouble,” says he, chap. xii., “such as never was since there began to
be a nation unto that same time, and at that time Thy people shall be
delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book. And
many that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake : some to everlasting
life, and some to shame and perpetual contempt. And they that be wise
shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many
to righteousness shall shine as the stars, for ever and ever.” How like
is this place unto that of the Gospel concerning the resurrection! that
says: ‘“ They that are in the graves:” this, “they that are in the dust
of the earth that saith, shall come forth: ” this, “ shall awake,” that, “they
that have done good, unto eternal life, and they that have done evil
unto everlasting damnation ;” this, “‘ some to everlasting life, and some
to perpetual shame and contempt.” Nor think they differ in that the
Gospel says, “all that are in the graves,” and the prophet says but
“many:” for the Scripture sometimes uses many for all. So was it said
unto Abraham, “thou shalt be a father of many nations,” and yet in
another place, “in thy seed shall all nations be blessed.” Of this
resurrection, it was said thus to Daniel himself a little after: “Go thou
thy way till the end be: for thou shalt rest, and stand up in thy lot at
the end of the days.”

CHAPTER XXIV.
David's prophecies of the world’s end, and the last judgment.

TOucHING this last judgment, we find much spoken of it in the Psalms,
but I omit the most of it, yet the plainest thereof, I cannot but
rehearse. ‘‘ Thou aforetime hast laid the foundation of the earth, and
the heavens are the works of Thy hands. They shall perish, but Thou
' shalt endure: they shall all wax old as doth a garment; as a vesture
shalt Thou change them, and they shall be changed: but Thou art the
same, and Thy years shall not fail.” What reason now has Porphyry to
praise the Hebrews for their adoration of the greatest God, and yet
blame the Christians for avouching that the world shall have an end,
seeing that these books of the Hebrews, whose God he confesses to be
terrible to all the rest, do directly aver it? ‘They shall perish :” what?
the heavens: the greatest, the safest, the highest part of the world
shall perish, and shall not the lesser, and the lower do so too? If Jove
do not like this, whose oracle (as Porphyry says) has condemned the
Christians’ credulity, why does he not condemn the Hebrews’ also, for
leaving this doctrine especially recorded in their holiest writings: but if
this Jewish wisdom which he does so commend, affirm that the heavens
shall perish, how vain a thing is it, to detest the Christian faith, for
avouching that the world shall perish, which if it perish not, then cannot

Of the City of God. 281

the heavens perish. Now our own Scriptures, with which the Jews
have nothing to do, our Gospels and apostolic writings, do all affirm
this. ‘‘The fashion of this world goeth away. The world passeth away.
Heaven and earth shall pass away.” But I think that ‘ passeth away,’
does not imply so much as ‘perisheth.’ But in St Peter’s epistle, where
he says, how the world perished being overflowed with water, is plainly
set down both what he meant by the world, how far it perished, and
what was reserved for fire, and the perdition of the wicked. And by
and by after, “The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in
the which the heavens shall pass away with a noise, the elements shall
melt with heat, and the earth with the rocks that are therein shall be
burnt up ;” and so concludes, that seeing all these perish, what manner
persons ought ye to be? Now we may understand that those heavens
shall perish which he said were reserved for fire, and those elements
shall melt which are here below in this mass of discordant natures ;
wherein also he says those heavens are reserved, not meaning the upper
spheres that are the seats of the stars: for whereas it is written, “that
the stars shall fall from heaven,” it is a good proof that the heavens shall
remain untouched ; (if these words be not figurative, but that the stars
shall fall indeed, or some such wondrous apparitions fill this lower air,
as Virgil speaks of,

“ Stella facem ducens multa cum luce cucurrit,”
‘A tailed star flew on, with glistering light,’

and so hid itself in the woods of Ida). But this place of the Psalm
seems to exempt none of all the heavens from perishing. “The heavens
are the works of Thine hands:” they shall perish: thus as He made all,
so all shall be destroyed. The Pagans scorn (I am sure) to call Saint
Peter to defend that Hebrew doctrine which their gods do so approve ;
by alleging the figurative speaking hereof, pars fro oto ; ‘all shall perish,’
meaning only all the lower parts: as the apostle says there, that the
world perished in the deluge, when it was only the earth, and some part
of the air. This shift they will not make, less they should either yield
to Saint Peter, or allow this position, that the fire at the last judgment
may do as much as we say the deluge did before: their assertion, that
all mankind can never perish, will allow them neither of these evasions.
Then they must needs say that when their gods commended the
Hebrews’ wisdom, they had not read this Psalm: but there is another
Psalm as plain as this: “Our God shall come, and shall not keep
silence: a fire shall devour before Him, and a mighty tempest shall be
moved round about Him: He shall call the heaven above, and the
earth to judge His people. Gather My saints together unto Me, those
that make a covenant with Me with sacrifice.” This is spoken of Christ,
whom we believe shall come from heaven to judge “ both the quick and
the dead.” He shall come openly, to judge all most justly, who when

282) — St Augustine.

He came in secret was judged Himself most unjustly. “He shall come
and shall not be silent,” His voice now shall confound the judge before
whom He was silent, when “ He was led like a sheep to the slaughter,
and as a lamb before the shearer is dumb,” as the prophet says of
Him, and as it was fulfilled in the Gospel. Of this fire and tempest we
spoke before, in our discourse of Isaiah’s prophecy touching this point.
But His calling the heavens above (that is the saints) this is that which
Saint Paul says: “Then shall we be caught up also in the clouds, to
meet the Lord in the air.” For if it meant not this, how could the
heavens be called above, as though they could be anywhere but above?
The words following: ‘“ and the earth,” if you add not above here also,
may be taken for those that are to be judged, and the heavens for those
that shall judge with Christ. And then the calling of the heavens, above
implies the placing of the saints on thrones of judgments, not their being
caught up into the air. We may further understand it to be His calling
of the angels from their high places, to descend with Him to judgment,
and by the earth, those that are to be judged. But if we do understand
above at both clauses, it intimates the saints’ being caught up directly:
putting the heavens for their souls, and the earth for their bodies: “to
judge (or discern) His people,” that is, to separate the sheep from the
goats, the good from the bad. ‘Then speaks He to His angels, “‘ Gather
My saints together unto Me :” this is done by the angels’ ministry. And
whom gather they? “Those that make a covenant with Me with sacri-
fice :” and this is the duty ofall just men todo. For either they must offer
their works of mercy (which is above sacrifice, as the Lord says, “I will
have mercy and not sacrifice”), or else theit works of mercy are the sacri-
fice itself that appeases God’s wrath, as I proved in the ninth book of
this present volume. In such works do the just make covenants with
God, in that they perform them for the promises made them in the New
Testament. So then Christ having gotten His righteous on His right
~ hand, will give them this welcome, “Come, ye blessed of My Father,
inherit ye the kingdom prepared for you from the foundations of the
world : for I was an hungered and ye gave Me to eat:” and so forth
of the good works, and their eternal rewards which shall be returned for
them in the last judgment.

CHAPTER XXV.
Matachi’s prophecy of the judgment, and of such as are to be purged by fire.

THE prophet Malachiel or Malachi (otherwise called the Angel, and
held by some, as Jerome says, and namely by the Hebrews, to be Esdras
the priest that wrote some other parts in the canon), prophesied of
the last judgment in these words: ‘‘ Behold He shall come, saith the
Lord of Hosts: but who may abide the day of His coming? and who
shall endure when He appeareth? for He is like a purging fire, and like

Of the City of God. 283

fuller’s soap: and He shall sit down to try and fine the silver, He shall
even fine the sons of Levi, and purify them as gold and silver, that they
may bring offerings to the Lord in righteousness. Then shall the offer-
ings of Judah and Jerusalem be acceptable unto the Lord as in old
time, and in the years afore. And I will come near unto you to judg-
ment, and I will be a swift witness against the soothsayers, and against
the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that wrong-
fully keep back the hireling’s wages, and vex the widow and the father-
less, and fear not Me, saith the Lord of Hosts: for I am the Lord,
I change not.” These words do seem evidently to imply a purifi-
cation of some, in the last judgment. For what other thing can be
meant by this, “ He is like a purging fire, and like fuller’s soap, and He
shall sit down to try and fine the silver, He shall fine the sons of Levi,
and purify them as gold or silver?” So says Esaias: ‘‘ The Lord shall
wash the filthiness of the daughters of Zion, and purge the blood of
Jerusalem out of the midst thereof, by the spirit of judgment, and by
the spirit of burning.” Perhaps this burning may be understood of that
separation of the polluted from the pure in that penal judgment, the
good being to live ever after, without any commerce with the bad. But
these words: “ He shall even fine the sons of Levi, and purify them as
gold and silver, that they may bring offerings to the Lord in righteous-
ness,” do intimate a purgation even of the good, who shall now be
cleansed from that unrighteousness wherein they displeased the Lord, and
being cleansed, and in their perfection of righteousness, they shall be pure
offerings themselves unto Him their Lord. For what better or more
acceptable oblation for Him than themselves? But let us leave this
theme of penal purgation unto a more fit opportunity. By the sons of
Levi, Judah, and Jerusalem, is meant the Church of God, both of
Hebrews arid others: but not in that state that it stands now in: (for as
we are now, “if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the
truth is not in us : ”) but as it shall be then, like a threshing floor cleansed
by the fan of the last judgment, all being penally purged, that needed
such a purification, so that now there shall need no more sacrifice for
sin, for all that offer such, are in sin, for the remission of which they
offer to be freed from it by God’s gracious acceptance of their offering.

CHAPTER XXVI.

Of the saints offerings, which God shall accept of, as in the old time,
and the years before.

To shew that the City of God should have no more such custom, it is
said that “The sons of Levi shall bring offerings to the Lord in
righteousness :” therefore not in sin, and consequently not for sin, we
may therefore gather by the words following, viz., “Then shall the

284 St Augustine.

offerings of Judah and Jerusalem be acceptable unto the Lord, as in old
time and in the years before ;” that the Jews are deceived in believing
the restorations of their old legal ceremonies : for all the sacrifices of the
old instrument were offered in sin, and for sin, the priest himself (who
we must think was the holiest) was expressly commanded by the Lord
to offer first for his own sins, and then for the people: we must there-
fore shew how these words, “ As in old time and in the years before,”
are to be taken. They may perhaps imply the time of our first parents
being in paradise, for they were then pure, and offered themselves as
unspotted oblations to the Lord. But they transgressing, and being
therefore thrust out, and all mankind being depraved and condemne din
them, since their fall no man but the Redeemer of the world and little
baptised infants were ever pure from sin : no not the infant of one day’s
age.

If it be answered that they are worthily said to offer in righteousness
that offer in faith, in that “‘ The just liveth by faith,” though if he say,
“he has no sin, he deceives himself,” and therefore he says it not,
because he lives by faith: I say again, is any one so far deceived as to
parallel these times of faith with those of the last judgment, wherein
those that are to offer those oblations in righteousness are to be purged
and refined? Nay, seeing that after that purgation there shall be no place
for the least imperfection of sin; assuredly the time wherein there shall
be no sin is not to be compared with any, saving with the time before
our first parents’ fall in paradise, wherein they lived in spotless felicity.
So that this it is which is meant by the old time, and the years before,
for such another passage is there in Isaiah. After the promise of a new
heaven and a new earth, amongst the other allegorical promises of
beatitudes to the saints (which study of brevity enforced us to let pass
unexpounded), this is one: “As the days of the tree of life, shall the
days of My people be.” This tree, who is it that has read the Scriptures
and knows not that God planted it, and where, and how our first parents
by sin were debarred from eating of the fruit thereof, and a terrible
guard set upon it for ever after? some may say the prophet by that
meant the days of Christ’s Church that now is, and that Christ is that
tree (according to that of Solomon concerning wisdom, “She is a
tree of life to them that lay hold on her”), and again, that our first
parents lived but a small while in paradise, seeing that they had no
children during that space, and therefore when we speak of the time
that they were there, we cannot speak of any years, as this place does,
‘In old time and in the years before.” Well, this question is too intricate
to discuss at this time, and therefore let it pass.

There is another meaning of these words also (besides this), which does
also exclude the interpretation of this place by the legal and carnal
sacrifices, as though the restoring of them were such a benefit, for those
offerings of the old law being made all of unpolluted beasts, and purely

Of the City of God. 285

exhibited, did signify spotless and holy men, such as Christ Himself
only was, and no other. Seeing therefore that in the judgment all being
cleansed that need cleansing, there shall not be any sin left in the saints,
but each shall offer himself in righteousness unto God, as an immaculate
and pure oblation : thus shall it be then as in the years before, when
that was represented typically which at this day shall be fulfilled truly, for
then shall that purity be real in the saints, which formerly was prefigured
in the sacrifices. And thus of that. Now as for those that are not
worthy of being cleansed, but condemned, thus says the prophet: “I
will come to you in judgment, and I will be a swift witness against the
soothsayers, and against the adulterers, &c., for I am the Lord, and
change not:” as if He said your fault has now made you worse, and
My grace once made you better: but “I change not.” He will be
witness Himself, because He shall in that judgment need no other.
Swift, because He will come on a sudden, unlooked for, and when He
is thought to be farthest off: and again because He will convince the
guilty conscience without making any words. “Inquisition shall be
made in the thoughts of the ungodly, says the wise man. Their con-
science also bearing witness” (says the apostle), “and their thoughts
accusing one another or excusing, at the day when God shall judge the
secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.” Thus then
shall God be a wise witness in calling that presently unto the thoughts
which shall forthwith condemn them.

CHAPTER XXVII.
Of the separation of the good from the bad in the end of the last judgment.

Tuat also which I alleged (to another purpose) in the eighteenth book,
out of this prophet belongs to the last judgment: ‘They shall be to
me, says the Lord of Hosts, in that day that I shall do this, as a flock,
for I will spare them as a man spares his own son that serves him: then
shall ye return and discern between the righteous and the wicked, be-
tween him that serves God and him that serves Him not, for behold the
day comes that shall burn as an oven, and all the proud, yea and all that
do wickedly, shall be stubble, and the day that comes shall burn them up,
says the Lord of Hosts, and shall leave them neither root nor branch.
But unto you that fear My name shall the Sun of righteousness arise, and
health shall be under his wings, and ye shall go forth and grow up as fat
calves. And ye shall tread down the wicked, for they shall be dust
under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, says the Lord
of Hosts.” This distance of rewards and punishments severing the just
from the unjust, is not seen by the transitory light of this worldly sun,
but when it appears before that Sun of righteousness, in the manifesta-
tion of the life to come, then shall there be such a judgment as never
was before.

286 St Augustine.
CHAPTER XXVIII.

Moses law, to be spiritually understood, for fear of dangerous error.

But whereas the prophet proceeds, saying: “ Remember the law of
Moses My servant, which I commend unto him in Horeb for all Israel
with the statutes and judgments,” this is fitly added, both to follow the
precedent distinction between the followers of the law and the con-
temners of it, as also to imply that the said law must be spiritually
interpreted, that Christ, the distinguisher of the good and bad,
may therein be discovered ; who spoke not idly Himself, when He
told the Jews, saying: ‘‘Had ye believed Moses, ye would have
believed Me, for he wrote of Me,” for these men conceiving the Scrip-
tures in a carnal sense and not apprehending those earthly promises as
types of the eternal ones, fell into those wicked murmurings that they
durst be bold to say, “It is in vain to serve God, and what profit is it
that we have kept His commandment, and that we walked humbly
before the Lord of Hosts? Therefore we count the proud blessed, even
they that work wickedness are set up,” &c. These their words seem
even to compel the prophet to foretell the last judgment, where the
wicked shall be so far from all shadow of happiness that they shall be
apparently wretched, and the good, so acquit from all lasting misery,
that they shall not be touched with any the most transitory, but fully
and freely be enthroned in eternal blessedness. For their words before
seem to say thus, “all that do evil, are good in God’s eye, and please
Him.” These grumblings against God proceeded merely of the carnal
understanding of Moses’ law. Whereupon the psalmist says “that he
had like to have fallen himself, and that his feet slipped, through his
fretting at the foolish, seeing the prosperity of the wicked,” insomuch
that he says: ‘‘ How doth God know it, or is there knowledge in the
Most High?” and a little after: “Have I cleansed mine heart in
vain, and washed mine hands in innocency?” But to clear this difficulty,
how it should come to pass that the wicked should be happy, and the
just miserable, he adds this: “Then thought I to know this, but it was
too hard for me, until I went into the sanctuary of God and then
understood I their end.” At the day of the Lord it shall not be so, but
the misery of the wicked, and the happiness of the godly shall appear
at full, in far other order than the present world can discover.

CHAPTER XXIX.

Elias’ coming to convert the Jews before the judgment.

Now the prophet having advised them to remember the law of Moses,
because he foresaw that would hereafter misinterpret much thereof, he
adds: “ Behold I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming
of the great and fearful day of the Lord: and he shall turn the heart

Of the City of God. 287

of the fathers to the children and of the children to the fathers, lest I
come and smite the earth with cursing.” That this great and mighty
prophet Elijah shall convert the Jews unto Christ before the judgment,
by expounding them the law, is most commonly believed and taught of
us Christians, and is held as a point of infallible truth. For we may
well hope for the coming of him before the judgment of Christ, whom
we do truly believe to live in the body at this present hour, without
having ever tasted of death. He was taken up by a fiery chariot, body
and soul from this mortal world, as the Scriptures plainly avouch.
Therefore when he comes to give the law a spiritual exposition, which
the Jews do now understand wholly in a carnal sense, “ Then shall he
turn the hearts of the fathers unto the children” (or, “the heart of the
father unto the child:” for the Seventy do often use the singular number
for the plural), that is, the Jews shall then understand the law as their
holy forefathers had done before them, Moses, the prophets, and the
rest. For the understanding of the fathers being brought to the under-
standing of the children, is the turning of the fathers’ heart unto the
children, and the children’s consent unto the understanding of the
fathers, is the turning of their hearts unto the fathers. And whereas the
Seventy say: “And the heart of a man unto his kinsman :” fathers and
children are the nearest of kindred, and consequently are meant of in
this place. There may be a farther and more choice interpretation of
this place, namely, that Elijah should*turn the heart of the Father unto
the Child ; not by making the Father to love the Child, but by teaching
that the Father loves Him, that the Jews who had hated Him before,
may henceforth love Him also. For they hold that God hates Him
now, because they hold Him to be neither God nor the Son of God: but
then shall His heart (in their judgments) be turned unto Him, when they
are so far turned themselves as to understand how He loves Him. The
sequel, “ And the heart of man unto his kinsman,” means, the heart of
man unto the man Christ, for He being one God in the form of God,
taking the form of a servant, and becoming man, vouchsafed to become
our kinsman. This, then, shall Elias perform. ‘“ Lest I come and
smite the earth with cursing.” The earth, that is, those carnal-thoughted
Jews, that now are, and that now murmur at the Deity, saying, “that
He delighted in the wicked, and that it is in vain to serve Him.”

CHAPTER XXX.

That it is not evident in the Old Testament in such places as say, God
shall judge, that it shall be in the person of Christ, but only by some
of the testimonies where the Lord God speaks.

To gather the whole number of such places of Scripture as prophesy
his judgment, were too tedious. Suffice we have proved it out of both
the Testaments. But the places of the Old Testament are not so evi:

288 St Augustine.

dent for the coming of Christ in person as them of the New be; for
whereas we read in the Old, that the “ Lord God shall come,” it is no
consequent that it is meant of Christ: for the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Ghost are all both Lord and God: which we may not omit to ob-
serve. We must therefore first of all make a demonstration of those
places in the prophets as do expressly name the Lord God, and yet
herein are evidently meant of Jesus Christ, as also of those wherein this
evidence is not so plain, and yet may be conveniently understood of Him
nevertheless. There is one place in Isaiah, that has it as plain as may be.
“ Hear Me, O Jacob and Israel,” says the said prophet, “My called ; Iam,
I am the first, and I am the last: surely My hand has laid the founda-
tion of the earth, and My right hand hath spanned the heavens: when
I call them, they stand together. All ye assemble yourselves, and
hear : which amongst them hath declared these things? The Lord hath
loved him: he will do his will in Babel, and his arm shall be against the
Chaldeans. I, even I have spoken it, and I have called him: I have
brought him and his ways shall prosper.

“Come near unto Me, hear ye this: I have not spoke it in secret
from the beginning, from the time that the thing was, I was there, and
now the Lord God and His Spirit hath sent Me.” This was He that
spoke here as the Lord God: and yet it had not been evident that He
was Christ, but that He adds the last clause, ‘‘ The Lord God and His
Spirit hath sent Me.” For this He spoke of that which was to come in
the form of a servant, using the preterperfect tense for the future, as the
prophet does elsewhere, saying, “‘ He was led as a sheep to the slaughter,”
he does not say, “‘ He shall be led,” but puts the time past for the time
to come, according to the usual phrase of prophetical speeches.

There is also another place in Zechariah, as evident as this: where
“The Almighty sent the Almighty:” and what was that, but that the
Father sent the Son? The words are these: “Thus saith the Lord of
Hosts : after this glory hath He sent Me unto the nations, which spoiled
you, for he that toucheth you, toucheth the apple of His eye. Behold,
I will lift My hand upon them, and they shall be a spoil to those that
served them, and ye shall know that the Lord of Hosts hath sent Me.”
Behold here, the Lord of Hosts says, that the Lord of Hosts has seut
Him. Who dare say that these words proceed from any but from Christ,
speaking to His lost sheep of Israel? for He says so Himself, “I am
not sent but unto the lost sheep of Israel:” those He compares here
unto the apple of His eye, in His most fervent love unto them, and of
those lost ones, the apostles were a part themselves; but after this
resurrection (before which the Holy Ghost, says John, was not yet
given, because that “ Jesus was not yet glorified ”), He was also sent unto
the Gentiles in His apostles, and so was that of the psalm fulfilled ;
‘*Thou hast delivered Me from the contentions of the people: Thou
hast made me the head of the heathen:” that those that had spoiled

Of the City of God. 289

the Israelites and made them slaves, should spoil them no more but be-
come their slaves. This promised He to His apostles, saying, “I will
make you fishers of men ;” and again, unto one of them alone, “From
henceforth thou shalt catch men.” Thus shall the nations become
spoils, but unto a good end, as a vessel taken from a strong man that is
bound by a stronger.

_ The said prophet also in another place says (or rather the Lord by
him says), “In that day will I seek to destroy all the nations that come
against Jerusalem, and I will pour upon the house of David and upon
the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of compassion, and
they shall look upon Me whom they have pierced, and they shall lament
for Him as one mourneth for his only son, and be sorry for Him as one
is sorry for his first-born.” Who is it but God that shall rid Jerusalem
of the foes that come against her, that is, that oppose her faith, or (as
some interpret it) that seek to make her captive? who but He can pour
the spirit of grace and compassion upon the house of David and upon
the inhabitants of Jerusalem? ‘This is properly God’s own attribute,
and spoken by God Himself in the prophet : and yet that this God, who
shall do all the wonderful works is Christ, the sequel shews plainly:
“They shall look upon Me whom they have pierced, and be sorry,” &c.
For those Jews who shall receive the spirit of grace and compassion, in the
time to come, shall repent that ever they insulted over Christ in His pas-
sion, when they shall see Him coming in His majesty, and know that this
is He whose baseness of parentage they had formerly flouted at. And
their forefathers shall see Him too, upon whom they had exercised such
impiety, even Him shall they behold, but not unto their correction, but
unto their confusion. These words there, “I will pour upon the house
of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and
compassion,” &c., do no way concern them, but their children only, whom
the preaching of Elias shall bring to the true faith. But as we say to the
Jews, “You killed Christ,” though it were their predecessors, so shall
the children of those murderers bewail the death of Christ themselves,
though their predecessors (and not they) were they that did the deed. So
then, though they receive the spirit of grace and compassion, and so
escape the condemnation of their forefathers, yet shall they grieve, as if
they had been partakers of their predecessors’ villainy, yet shall it not be
guilt but zeal that shall enforce this grief in them. The Seventy do read
this place thus, “‘ They shall behold Me over whom they have insulted ;”
but the Hebrews read it, “ whom they have pierced,” which gives a fuller
intimation of the crucifying of Christ. But that insultation in the Seventy
was continued even through the whole passion of Christ: their taking
Him, binding Him, judging Him, apparelling Him with mock habits,
crowning Him with thorn, striking Him on the head with reeds, mock-
ing Him with teigned reverence, enforcing Him to bear His own Cross,
and crucifying Him even to His very last gasp, was nothing but a con-

II. a

290 St Augustine,

tinuate insultation. So that laying both the interpretations together (as
we do) we express at full, that this place implies Christ and none
other.

Therefore, whensoever we read in the prophets that “God shall judge
the world,” though there be no other distinction, that that very word
“judge” does express the Son of Man, for by His coming it 1s that
God’s judgment shall be executed. God the Father in His personal
presence will judge no man, but has given all judgment unto His Son,
who shall shew Himself as man, to judge the world even as He shewed
Himself as man to be judged of the world. Who is it of whom God
speaks in Isaiah under the name of Jacob and Israel, but this Son of
Man that took flesh of Jacob’s line? “Jacob, My servant, I will
stay upon him. Israel, Mine elect in whom My soul delighteth, I have
put My spirit upon Him, He shall bring forth judgment unto the Gen-
tiles. He shall not cry nor lift up nor cause His voice to be heard in the
streets. A bruised reed shall He not break, and the smoking flax shall
He not quench: He shall bring forth judgment in truth. He shall not
fail nor be discouraged until He have settled judgment in the earth,
and the isles shall hope in His name.”

In the Hebrew there is no mention of Jacob nor of Israel, but the
Seventy being desirous to shew what He meant by His servant, namely,
that same form of a servant wherein the highest was humbled, added
the name of the man from whose stock He was to derive that servile
form. “The Spirit of God came upon Him in form of a dove,” as the
Gospel testifies. ‘“ He brought forth judgment to the Gentiles,” in fore-
telling them of future things which they never knew of before. “ He
did not cry out,” yet ceased He not to preach: “ Nor was His voice
heard without” (or in the street), for such as are cut off from His fold
never hear His voice. “He neither broke down” nor extinguished
those Jews His persecutors, whose lost integrity and abandoned light
made them like bruised reeds and smoking flax; “‘ He spared them,”
for as yet He was not come to judge them, but to be judged by them.
“He brought forth judgment in truth,” by shewing them their future
plagues if they perished in their malice. “ His face shone on the
mount,” His fame in the whole world, ‘‘ He neither failed nor fainted,”
in that both He and His Church stood firm against all persecutions.
Therefore His foes never had, nor ever shall have cause to think that
fulfilled which they wished in the Psalm, saying: “ When shall He die
and His name perish?” until He have settled judgment in the earth.
Lo, here is that we seek. The last judgment is that which He shall
settle upon earth ; coming ‘to effect it out of heaven. As for the last
words, “‘ The isles shall hope in His name,” we see it fulfilled already.

Thus, then, by this which is so undeniable is that proved credible
which impudence dares yet deny. For who would ever have hoped for
that which the unbelievers themselves do now behold, as well as we, to

Of the City of God. 291

their utter heart-breaking and confusion? Who did ever look that the
Gentiles should embrace Christianity, that had seen the Author thereof
bound, beaten, mocked, and crucified? That which one thief durst but
hope for upon the Cross, in that now do the nations far and wide repose
their utmost confidence, and lest they should incur eternal death are
signed with that figure whereupon He suffered His temporal death.
Let none, therefore, make any doubt that Christ shall bring forth such
a judgment as the Scriptures do promise, except he believe not the
Scriptures, and stand in his own malicious blindness against that which
has enlightened all the world.

And this judgment shall consist of these circumstances, partly pre-
cedent and partly adjacent: Elijah shall come, the Jews shall believe,
Antichrist shall persecute, Christ shall judge, the dead shall arise, the
good and bad shall sever, the world shall burn and be renewed. All
this we must believe shall be, but in what order, our full experience
then shall exceed our imperfect intelligence as yet. Yet verily I do
think they shall fall out in order as I have rehearsed them. Now
remains there two books more of this theme, to the perfect performance
of our promise: the first of which shall treat of the pains due unto the
wicked, and the second of the glories bestowed upon the righteous ;
wherein, if it please God, we will subvert the arguments which foolish
mortals and miserable wretches make for themselves against God’s holy
and Divine promises, and against the sacred nutriment given to the soul
by an unspotted faith, thinking themselves the only wise men in these
their ungracious cavils, and deriding all religious instructions as con-
temptible and ridiculons. As for those that are wise in God, in all that
seems most incredible unto man, if it be avouched by the Holy Scrip-
tures (whose truth we have already sufficiently proved), they lay hold
upon the True and Omnipotent Deity, as the strongest argument against
all opposition, for He (they know) cannot possibly speak false in those
Scriptures, and withal, can by His Divine power effect that which may
seem more than most impossible to the unbelievers.

SS 5 6 6 et a ee eli
freeads feu |e

THE TWENTY-FIRST BOOK OF THE
CITY OF GOD.

——:0:——

CHAPTER I.

Why the punishment of the condemned is here disputed of before
the happiness of the saints.

SSETING that by the assistance of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,

“the Judge of the quick and the dead,” we have brought both the
cities (the one whereof is God’s and the other the devil’s), unto their
intended consummation, we are now to proceed (by the help of God) in
this book, with the declaration of the punishment due unto the devil
and all his confederacy. And this I choose to do before I handle the
glories of the blessed, because both these and the wicked are to undergo
their sentences in body and soul, and it may seem more incredible for
an earthly body to endure undissolved in eternal pains, than without all
pain, in everlasting happiness. So that when I have shewn the possi-
bility of the first, it may be a great motive unto the confirmation of the
latter. Nor does this method want a precedent from the Scriptures them-
selves, which sometimes relate the beatitude of the saints foremost, as
here, “They that have done good, unto the resurrection of life, but
they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of condemnation,” and
sometimes afterward, as here, ‘The Son of Man shall send forth His
angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom ail things that offend,
and them which do iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire ;
there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth: then shall the just shine
like the sun, in the kingdom of the Father,” and again, “ And these
shall go into everlasting pain; but the righteous into life eternal.” Be-
sides, he that will look into the prophets shall find this order often
observed: it were too much for me to recite all: my reason why I
observe it here, I have ‘set down already.

Of the City of God. 293

CHAPTER II.
Whether an earthly body may possibly be incorruptible by fire.

Wear then shall I say unto the unbelievers, to prove that a body
carnal and living, may endure undissolved both against death and the
force of eternal fire. They will not allow us to ascribe this unto tke
power of God, but urge us to produce it to them by some example.
If we shall answer them that there are some creatures that are indeed
corruptible, because mortal, and yet do live untouched in the midst of
the fire: and likewise, that there are a kind of worms that live without
being hurt in the fervent springs of the hot baths, whose heat some
times is such as none can endure; and yet those worms do so love to
live in it, that they cannot live without it: this, either they will not
believe unless they see it; or if they do see it, or hear it affirmed by
sufficient authority, then they cavil at it as an insufficient proof for the
proposed question ; for that these creatures are not eternal howsoever,
and living thus in this heat, nature has made it the means of their
growth and nutriment, not of their torment. As though it were not
more incredible that fire should nourish anything rather than not con-
sume it. It is strange for anything to be tormented by the fire, and yet
to live: but it is stranger to live in the fire and not to be tormented
If then this latter be credible, why is not the first so also ?

CHAPTER III.
Whether a fieshly body may possibly endure eternal pain.

Yea but (say they) there is no body that can suffer eternally but it must
perish at length. How can we tell that? Who can tell whether the
devils do suffer in their bodies, when, as they confess, they are ex-
tremely tormented? If they answer that there is no earthly soul, and
visible body, or (to speak all in one) no flesh that can suffer always and
never die, what 1s this but to ground an assertion upon mere sense and
appearance? for these men know no flesh but mortal, and what they
have not known and seen, that they hold impossible. And what an
argument is this, to make pain the proof of death, when it is rather the
testimony of life! for though our question be, whether anything living
may endure eternal pain and yet live still, yet are we sure it cannot
feel any pain at all unless it live, pain being inseparably adherent unto
life, if it be in anything at all. Needs then must that live that is pained,
yet is there no necessity that this or that pain should kill it: for
all pain does not kill all the bodies that perish. Some pain indeed
must, by reason that the soul and the body are so conjoined that they
cannot part without great torment, which the soul gives place unto, and
the mortal frame of man being so weak that it cannot withstand this
violence, thereupon are they severed. But afterwards, they shall be so

204 St Augustine.

rejoined again, that neither time nor torment shall be able to procure
their separation. Wherefore though our flesh as now be such that it
cannot suffer all pain, without dying; yet then shall it become of
another nature, as death also then shall be of another nature. For the
death then shall be eternal, and the soul that suffers it shall neither be
able to live, having lost her God her only life, nor yet to avoid torment,
having lost all means of death. The first death forces her from the
body against her will, and the second holds her in the body against her
will. Yet both are one in this, that they enforce the soul to suffer in the
body against her will. Our opponent will allow this, that no flesh as
now can suffer the greatest pain, and yet not perish: but they observe
not that there is a thing above the body, called a soul, that rules and
guides it, and this may suffer all torment and yet remain for ever. Be-
hold now, here is a thing, sensible of sorrow, and yet eternal: this
power then that is now in the souls of all, shall be as then in the bodies
of the damned. And if we weigh it well, the pains of the body are
rather referred to the soul. The soul it is, and not the body that feels
the hurt inflicted upon any part of the body.

So that as we call them living, and sensitive bodies, though all the
life and sense is from the soul ; so likewise do we say they are grieved
bodies, though the grief be only in the soul. So then, when the body
is hurt, the soul grieves with the body. When the mind is offended by
' some inward vexation, then the soul grieves alone, though it be in the
body; and further, it may grieve when it is without the body, as the
soul of the rich glutton did in hell, when he said, ‘‘I am tormented in
this flame.” But the body wanting a soul grieves not, nor having a
soul, does it grieve without the soul. If therefore it were meet to draw
an argument of death, from the feeling of pain, as if we should say, he
may feel pain: ergo, he may die, this should rather infer that the soul
may die, because it is that which is the feeler of the pain.

But seeing that this is absurd and false, how then can it follow that
those bodies which shall be in pain, shall therefore be subject unto
death? Some Platonists hold that those parts of the soul wherein fear,
joy, and grief were resident, were mortal, and perished: whereupon
Virgil said, “ Hinc metuunt cupiuntque, dolent, gaudent,” ‘hence’
(that is, by reason of those mortal parts of the soul) ‘ did fear, hope, joy,
and grief possessthem.’ But touching this we proved in our fourteenth
book, that after that their souls were purged to the uttermost, yet
remained there a desire in them, to return unto their bodies : and where
desire is, there grief may be. For hope being frustrate and missing the
aim, turns into grief and anguish. Wherefore if the soul which does
principally, or only suffer pain, be notwithstanding (after a sort)
immortal, then does it not follow that a body should perish because it
is in pain. Lastly, if the body may breed the soul’s grief, and yet can-
not kill it, this is a plain consequent that pain does not necessarily infer

Of the City of God. 205

death. Why then is it not as credible that the fire should grieve those
bodies and yet not kill them, as that the body should procure the soul’s
anguish and yet not the death? Pain therefore is no sufficient argument
to prove that death must needs follow it.

CHAPTER IV.
Nature's testimonies, that bodies may remain undiminished in the fare.

Ir therefore the salamander live in the fire (as the most exact naturalists
record), and if there be certain famous hills in Sicily that have been on
fire continually, from beyond the memory of man, and yet remain
whole and unconsumed, then are these sufficient proofs to shew that all
does not consume that burns, as the soul proves that all that feels pain
does not perish. Why then should we stand upon any more examples
to prove the perpetuity of man’s soul and body, without death, or
dissolution in everlasting fire and torment? That God that endowed
nature with so many several and admirable qualities, shall as then give
the flesh a quality whereby it shall endure pain and burning for ever.
Who was it but He, that has made the flesh of a dead peacock to remain
always sweet, and without all putrefaction? I thought this impossible
at first, and by chance being at meat in Carthage, a boiled peacock was
served up, and I, to try the conclusion, took of some of the lyre of the
breast and caused it to be laid up. After a certain space (sufficient for
the putrefaction of any ordinary flesh) I called for it, and smelling to it,
found no ill taste in it at all. Laid it up again, and thirty days after, I
looked again, it was the same I left it. The like I did a whole year
after, and found no change, only it was somewhat more dry and solid.
Who gave such cold unto the chaff, that it will keep snow unmelted in
it, and withal, such heat, that it will ripen green apples? Who gave
the fire that wonderful power to make all things that it burns black, it-
self being so bright, and to turn a shining brand into a black coal?
Neither does it always thus. For it will burn stones until they be white,
and though it be red, and they whitish, yet does this their white agree
with the light as well as black does with darkness. Thus the fire
burning the wood, to bake the stone, works contrary effects upon
objects which are not contrary. For stone and wood are different but
not opposite, whereas white and black are, the one of which colours the
fire effects upon the stone, and the other upon the wood, whitening
the first, and darkening the latter, though it could not perfect the first
except by the help of the latter. : a

And what strange things there are in a coal! it is so brittle that a
little blow turns it to powder, and yet so durable that no moisture cor-
rupts it, no time wastes it, so that they are wont to lay coals under
boundaries, and markstones for lands, to convince any one that should

206 St Augustine.

come hereafter and say this is no boundarystone. What is it that makes
them endure so long in the earth, where wood would easily rot, but that
same fire that corrupts all things? And then for lime, besides that it is
whitened by the fire, it carries fire in itself, as taken from the fire, and
keeps it so secret, that it is not discoverable in it by any of our senses,
nor known to be in it but by our experience. And therefore we call it
quicklime, the invisible fire being as the soul of that visible body. But
the wonder is that when it is killed it is quickened. For, to fetch out
the fire from it, we cast water upon it, and being cold before, that
inflames it, that cools all other things being never so hot. So that the
lump dying as it were, gives up the fire that was in it, and afterwards
remains cold if you water it never so: and then for quicklime we call it
quenched lime. What thing can be more strange? yes. If you pour
oil upon it instead of water, though oil be rather the feeder of fire, yet
will it never alter, but remain cold still. If we should have heard thus
much of some Indian stone, that we had not, nor could not get to
prove it, we should surely imagine it either to be a stark lie, or a strange
wonder.

But things occurrent unto daily experience, are debased by their
frequency, in so much that we have left off wondering at some things that
only India (the farthest continent of the world) has presented to our view.
The diamond is common amongst us, chiefly with our jewellers and
lapidaries : and this is so hard that neither fire, stone, nor steel can once
dint it, but only the blood of a goat. But do you think this hardness so
much admired now as it was by him that first of all descried it? Such
as know it not, may peradventure not believe it, or believing it, on
" seeing it, may admire it as a rare work of nature: but daily trial ever
takes off the edge of admiration, We know that the loadstone draws
iron strangely: and surely when I observed it at the first, it made me
much aghast. For I beheld the stone draw up an iron ring, and then
as if it had given its own power to the ring, the ring drew up another
and made it hang fast by it, as it hung by the stone. So did a third by
that, and a fourth by the third, and so until there was hung, as it were,
a chain of rings only by touch of one another, without any inter-linking.
Who would not admire the power in this stone, not only inherent in it,
but also extending itself through so many circles, and such a distance?
Yet stranger was that experiment of this stone which my brother and
fellow bishop Severus, Bishop of Milevita, shewed me.

He told me that he had seen Bathanarius (sometime a count of
Africa), when he feasted him once at his own house, take the said stone
and hold it under a silver plate upon which he laid a piece of iron: and
still as he moved the stone under the plate, so did the iron move above,
the plate not moving at all, and just in the same motion that his hand
moved the stone, did the stone move the iron. This I saw, and this
did I hear him report, whom I will believe as well as if I had seen it

Of the City of God. 297

myself. I have read furthermore of this stone, that lay but a diamond
near it, and it will not draw iron at all, but puts it from it as soon as ever
the diamond comes to touch it. These stones are to be found in India.
But if the strangeness of them be now no more admired of us, how
much less do they admire them where they are as common as our lime,
whose strange burning in water (which ordinarily quench the fire), and
not in oil (which feeds it) we do now cease to wonder at because it
is so frequent.
CHAPTER V.

Of such things as cannot be assuredly known to be such, and yet
are not to be doubted of.

But the unbelievers, hearing of miracles, and such things as we cannot
make apparent to their sense, fall to ask us the reason of them, which
because it surpasses our human powers to give, they deride them, as false
and ridiculous ; but let them but give us reason for all the wondrous things
that we have seen, or may easily see hereafter, which if they cannot do,
then let them not say that there is not, nor can be anything without a
reason why it should be; thus seeing that they are convinced by their
own eyesight, I will not therefore run through all relations of authors,
but try their cunning in things which are extant for any to see, that will
take the pains. The salt of Agrigentum in Sicily, being put in fire
melts into water, and in water, it crackles like the fire.

The Garamante have a fountain so cold in the day that it cannot be
drunk of: so hot in the night that it cannot be touched. In Epirus is
another, wherein if you quench a torch, you may light it again thereat.
The Arcadian asbestos being once inflamed, will never be quenched.
There is a kind of fig tree in Egypt whose wood sinks, and being
thoroughly ‘steeped (and the heavier, one would think), it rises again
to the top of the water.

The apples of the country of Sodom are fair to the eye, but being
touched, fall to dust and ashes. The Persian pyrites, pressed hard in the
hand, burns it, whereupon it has the name. The selenites is another
stone wherein the waxing and waning of the moon is ever visible. The
mares in Cappadocia conceive with the wind, but their foals live but
three years. The trees of Ceylon, an isle in India, never cast their leaves
All these, and thousands more, are no past things, but visible at this
day, each in their places ; it were too long for me to recite all, my pur
pose is otherwise. And now let those infidels give me the reason o:
these things, those that will not believe the Scriptures, but hold then
to be fictions, in that they seem to relate incredible things, such as }
have now reckoned! Reason (say they) forbids us to think that a body
should burn, and yet not be consumed, that it should feel pain, and yet
live everlastingly. O rare disputers! you that can give reason for all
miraculous things, give me the reasons of those strange effects of nature

298 S? Augustine.

before named, of those few only, which if you know not to be now
visible, and not future, but present to the view of those that will make
trial, you would be more incredulous in them than in this, which we say
shall come to pass hereafter. For which of you would believe us if we
say (as we say that men’s bodies hereafter shall burn and not consume, so
likewise) that there is a salt that melts in fire, and crackles in the water?
of a fountain intolerably hot in the night, and intolerably cold in the
day? or a stone that burns him that holds it hard, or another, that being
once fired, never quenches? and so of the rest. If we had said, these
things shall be in the world to come, and the infidels had bidden us
give the reason why, we could freely confess we could not, the power
of God in His works surpassing the weakness of human reason: and yet
that we knew that God did not act without reason in these things sur-
passing the reason of mortal man : we know not His will in many things,
yet know we that what He wills is no way impossible, as He has told us,
to whom we must neither impute falseness nor imperfection. But what
say our great reasoners unto those ordinary things which are so common,
and yet exceed all reason, and seem to oppose the laws of nature? If
we should say they were to come, then the infidels would forthwith ask
reason for them, as they do for that which we say is to come. And
therefore, seeing that in those works of God man’s reason is at fault, as
these things are such now, and yet why, no man can tell, so shall the
other be also hereafter, beyond human capacity and apprehension.

CHAPTER VI.

All strange effects are not Natures: some are man’s devices: some
the devil's.

PERuaps they will answer, Oh, these are lies, we believe them not, they
are false relations: if these be credible, then believe you also if you list
(for one man has related both this and those), that there was a temple
of Venus wherein there burned a lamp which no wind nor water could
ever quench, so that it was called the inextinguishable lamp. This they
may object, to put us in a dilemma, for if we say it is false, we detract
from the truth of our former examples, and if we say it is true, we shall
seem to acknowledge a pagan deity. Butas I said inthe eighteenth book,
we need not believe all that paganism has historically published, their
histories (as Varro witnesses) seeming to conspire in voluntary conten-
tion one against another: but we may, if we will, believe such of their
relations as do not contradict those books which we are bound to be-
sieve. Experience and sufficient testimony shall afford us wonders enough
of nature, to convince us of the possibility of what we intend against
those infidels. As for that lamp of Venus, it rather gives our argument
more scope than any way suppresses it. For unto that, we can add a
thousand strange things effected both by human invention and magical

Of the City of God. 299

operation: which if we would deny, we should contradict those very
books wherein we believe. Wherefore that lamp either burned by the
artificial placing of some asbestos in it, or it was effected by art magic,
to procure a religious wonder, or else some devil having honour there
under the name of Venus, continued in this apparition for the preserva-
tion of men’s misbelief. For the devils are allured to inhabit some
certain bodies by the very creatures of God, and not their delighting in
them, not as other creatures do in meats, but as spirits do in characters
and signs adapted to their natures, either by stones, herbs, plants,
living creatures, charms, and ceremonies.

And this allurement they do subtly entice man to procure them
either by inspiring him with the secrets thereof, or teaching him the
order in a false and flattering apparition, making some few, scholars tc
them, and teachers to many more. For man could never know what
they love, and what they loathe, but by their own instructions, which
were the first foundations of art magic. And then do they get the
fastest hold of men’s hearts (which is all they seek and glory in) when
they appear like angels of light. However, their works are strange, and
the more marvellous, the more to be avoided, which their own natures
do persuade us to do; for if these foul devils can work such wonders,
what cannot the glorious angels do then? Nay, what cannot that God
do, who has given such power to the most hated creatures? So, then,
if human art can effect such rare conclusions, that such as know them
not would think them divine effects : (as there was an iron image hung
in a certain temple, so strangely that the ignorant would have verily be-
lieved they had seen a work of God’s immediate power, it hung so just
between two loadstones (whereof one was placed in the roof of the
temple, and the other in the floor), without touching of anything at all),
and as there might be such a trick of man’s art, in that inextinguishable
lamp of Venus, if magicians (whom the Scriptures call sorcerers and en-
chanters) can do such, are taught by the action of the devils, as Virgil,
that famous poet, relates of an enchantress, in these words—

“‘ Haec se carminibus promittit solvere montes
Quas velit, ast aliis duras immittere curas,
Sistere aquam fluviis, et vertere sidera retro,
Nocturnosque ciet manes, mugire videbis
Sub pedibus terram et descendere montibus Ornos.”
6 She said her charms could ease one’s heart of pain,
Even when she list, and make him grieve again.
Stop floods, bring back the stars, and with her breath,
Rouse the black fiends, until the earth beneath
Groaned, and the trees came marching from the hills, &c.

If all this be possible to those, how much more then can the power
of God exceed them in working such things as are incredible to infi-
delity, but easy to His omnipotency, who has given virtues unto stones,

300 St Augustine.

wit unto man, and such large power unto angels! His wonderful power
exceeds all wonders, His wisdom permits and effects all and every
particular of them, and cannot He make the most wonderful use of ail
the parts of that world that He only has created ?

CHAPTER VII.
God’s omnipotency the ground of all belief in things marvelled at.

Wuy then cannot God make the bodies of the dead to rise again, and
the damned to suffer torment and yet not to consume, seeing He has
filled heaven, earth, air, and water so full of innumerable miracles, and
the world, which He made, being a greater miracle than any it con-
tains? But our adversaries, believing a God that made the world
and the other gods, by whom He governs the world, do not deny, but
avouch that there are powers that effect wonders in the world, either
voluntarily, or ceremonially and magically, but when we give them an
instance wrought neither by man nor by spirit, they answer us, It is
nature, nature has given it this quality. So then it was nature that
made the Agrigentine salt melt in the fire, and crackle in the water.
Was it so? this seems rather contrary to the nature of salt, which natur-
ally dissolves in water, and crackles in the fire. Ay, but nature (say
they) made this particular salt of a quality just opposite. Good: this,
then, is the reason also of the heat and cold of the Garamantine fountain,
and of the other that puts out the torch and lights it again, as also of the
asbestos, and those other, all which to rehearse were too tedious: there
is no other reason belike to be given for them, but, Such is their nature,
A good brief reason verily, and a sufficient. But God, being the Author
of all nature, why then do they exact a stronger reason of us, when
_ We, in proving that which they hold for an impossibility, affirm that it is
thus by the will of Almighty God, who is therefore called Almighty be-
cause He can do all that He will, having created so many things which
were they not to be seen, and confirmed by sufficient testimony, would
seem as impossible as the rest, whereas now we know them, partly all,
and partly some of us. As for other things that are but reported with-
out testimony, and concern not religion, nor are not taught in Scripture,
they may be false, and a man may lawfully refuse to believe them. I
do not believe all that I have set down, so firmly that I do make no
doubt of some of them, but for that which I have tried, as the burning
of lime in water and cooling in oil; the loadstone’s drawing of iron
and not moving a straw; the incorruptibility of the peacock’s flesh,
whereas Plato’s flesh did putrefy ; the keeping of snow and the ripening
of apples in chaff; the bright fire making the stones of its own colour,
and wood of the just contrary, these I have seen and believe without
any doubt at all: such also are these, that clear oil should make black
spots, and white silver draw a black line: that coals should turn black,

Of the City of God. 301

from white wood, brittle of hard ones, and incorruptible of corruptible
pieces : together with many other which tediousness forbids me here to
insert. For the others, excepting that fountain that quenches and kindles
again, and the dusty apples of Sodom, I could not get any sufficient
proofs to confirm them. Nor met I any that had beheld that fountain
of Epirus, but I found divers that had seen the like, near unto Grenoble
in France. And for the apples of Sodom, there are both grave authors,
and eye-witnesses enough alive, that can affirm it, so that I make no doubt
thereof. The rest I leave indifferent, to affirm or deny ; yet I did set
them down because they are recorded in our adversaries’ own histories,
to shew them how many things they believe in their own books, without
all reason, that will not give credence to us, when we say that God
Almighty will do anything that exceeds their capacity to conceive.
What better or stronger reason can be given for anything than to say,
God Almighty will do this, which He has promised in those books
wherein He promises as strange things as this, which He has per-
formed. He will do it, because He has said He will: even He, that
has made the incredulous heathens believe things which they held mere
impossibilities.
CHAPTER VIII.

That the alteration of the known nature of any creature, unto a nature
unknown, ts not opposite unto the laws of nature.

IF they reply that they will not believe that man’s body can endure
perpetual burning, because they know it is of no such nature, so that it
cannot be said of it, that nature has given it such a quality, we may
answer them out of the Scriptures, that man’s body before his fall was
of such a nature that it could not suffer death: and yet in his fall was
altered unto that mortal misery wherein now all mankind lives, to die
at length: and therefore at the resurrection it may undergo such an-
other alteration, unknown to us as yet. But they believe not the
Scriptures that relate man’s estate in Paradise; if they did, we should
not need to stand long with them upon this theme of the pains of the
damned: whereas now we must make demonstration out of their own
authors, how it is possible that there may be a full alteration of nature
in any one object, from the kind of being that it had before, and yet
the laws of nature be kept unviolated. Thus we read in Varro’s book,
“ Of the Race of the Roman People,” Castor (saith he) relates, that in
‘that bright star of Venus, which Plautus calls “ Hesperugo,” and Homer
“the glorious Hesperus,” befell a most monstrous change both of colour,
magnitude, figure, and motion: the like never was before nor since:
and this, says Adrastus of Cyzicus, and Dion of Naples (two famous
astronomers) befell in the reign of Ogyges. A monstrous change, says
Varro, and why, but that it seemed contrary to nature: such we say,
all portents to be, but we are deceived: for how can that be against

302 St Augustine.

nature which is effected by the will of God, the Lord and Maker of all
nature? A portent, therefore, is not against nature, but against the
most common order of nature. But who is he that can relate all the
portents recorded by the Gentiles? Let us seek our purpose in this
one. What more decretal law has God laid upon nature in any part of
the creation, than He has in the motions of the heavens? what more
legal and fixed order does any part of nature keep? and yet you see,
that when it was the pleasure of Nature’s highest sovereign, the brightest
star in all the firmament changed the colour, magnitude, and figure,
and which is most marvellous, the very course and motion. This made
a foul disturbance in the rules of the astrologers (if there were any
then) when they, observing their fixed descriptions of the eternal course
of the stars, durst affirm that there never was, nor ever would be any
such change as this of Venus was. Indeed, we read in the Scriptures
that the sun stood still at the prayer of Joshua, until the battle was
done, and went back to shew Hezekiah that the Lord had added
fifteen years unto his life. As for the miracles done by the virtues of
the saints, these infidels know them well, and therefore aver them to be
done by magic: whereupon Virgil says, as I related before of the witch,
that she could

“Sistere aquam fluviis et vertere sydera retrd :”
‘Stop floods, bring back the stars,’ &c.

For the River Jordan parted, when Joshua led the people over it, and
when Elijah passed it, as likewise when his follower Elisha divided it
with Elijah’s cloak, and the sun, as we said before, went back in the
time of Hezekiah. But Varro does not say that any one desired this
change of Venus. Let not the faithless therefore hoodwink themselves
in the knowledge of nature, as though God’s power could not alter the
nature of anything from what it was before unto man’s knowledge,
although that the known nature of anything be fully as admirable, but
that men admire nothing but rarities. For what reasonable man does
not see, that in that greatest likeness and most numerous multitude
of one work of nature, the face of man, there is such an admirable
quality, that were they not all of one form, they should not distinguish
man from beast, and yet were they all of one form, one man should
not be known from another? Thus likeness and difference are both in
one object. But the difference is most admirable, nature itself seeming
to exact an uniformity in the proportion thereof, and yet because it is
rarities which we admire, we do wonder far more when we see two
so like that one may be easily and is oftentimes deceived in taking
the one for the other. But it may be they believe not the relation of
Varro, though he be one of their most learned historians, or do
not respect it, because this star did not remain long in this new form,
but soon resumed the former shape and course again. Let us therefore

Of the City of God. 303

give them another example, which together with this of his, I think may
suffice to convince, that God is not to be bound to any conditions in
the allotting of particular being to anything, as though He could not
make an absolute alteration thereof into an unknown quality of essence.
The country of Sodom was formerly otherwise than it is now: it was once
like the rest of the land, as fertile and as fair, if not more than the rest,
insomuch that the Scripture compares it to Paradise. But being smitten
from heaven (as the heathen stories themselves record, and all travellers
confirm) it now is as a field of soot and ashes, and the apples of the soil
being fair without are naught but dust within. Behold, it was not such, and
yet such it is at this day. Behold a terrible change of nature wrought
by nature’s Creator: and that it remains in that sole estate now, which
it was a long time ere it fell into. So then, as God can create what He
will, so can He change the nature of what He has created at His good
pleasure. And hence is the multitude of monsters, visions, portents,
and prodigies, for the particular relation whereof here is no place. They
are called monsters, from monstro, ‘to shew,’ because they betoken some-
what: and portents and prodigies from fortendo, and porrd dico, to presage
and foretell somewhat to ensue. But whether they, or the devils,
whose care it is to inveigle and entangle the minds of the imperfect, and
such as deserve it, do delude the world either by true predictions, or by
stumbling on the truth by chance, let their observers and interpreters
look to that. But we ought to gather this from all those monsters and
prodigies that happen or are said to happen against nature (as the
apostle implied when he spoke of “The engrafting of the wild olive into
the garden olive, whereby the wild one was made partaker of the root
and fatness of the other”), that they all do tell us this, that God will do
with the bodies of the dead, according to His promise, no difficulty, no
law of nature'can or shall prohibit Him. And what He has promised,
the last book declared out of both the Testaments, not in very great
measure, but sufficient (I think) for the purpose and volume.

CHAPTER IX.
Of hell, and the qualities of the eternal pains therein.

As God therefore by His prophet spoke of the pains of the damned,
such shall they be: “ Their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire
be quenched.” Our Saviour, to commend this unto us, putting the parts
that offend a man, for man’s right members, and bidding him cut
them off, adds this: ‘‘ Better it is for thee to enter into life maimed, than
having two hands to go into hell into the fire that never shall be quenched,
where their worm dies not, and their fire is not quenched,” and likewise
of the foot: “ Better for thee to go halting into life, than having two feet
to be cast into hell,” &c. And so says he of the eye also, adding the
prophet’s words three several times. O whom would not this thunder

q
304 St Augustine. ;

from the mouth of God strike a chill terror into, sounding so often?
Now, as for this worm and this fire, they that make them only mental
pains do say that the fire implies the burning of the soul in grief and
anguish, that now repents too late for being severed from the sight of
God: after the manner that the apostle says: “Who is offended and I
burn not?” And this language may be meant also by the worm, say
they, as it is written, ‘‘ As the moth is to the garment, and the worm to
the wood, so does sorrow eat the heart of a man.” Now such as hold
them both mental and real, say that the fire is a bodily plague to the
body, and the worm a plague of conscience to the soul. This seems
more likely in that it is absurd to say that either the soul or body shall
be clear of pain ; yet had I rather take part with them that say they are
both bodily than with those that say that neither of them is so ; and
therefore that sorrow in the Scriptures though it be not expressed so, yet
it is understood to be a fruitless repentance conjoined with a corporal
torment, for the Scripture says: “The vengeance of the (flesh of the)
wicked is fire and the worm :” he might have said more briefly, “ The
vengeance of the wicked,” why did he then add “of the flesh,” but to
shew that both those plagues, “the fire and the worm,” shall be cor-
poral? If he added it because that man shall be thus plagued for living
according to the flesh (fur it is therefore that he incurs the second death,
which the apostle means when he says, “If ye live after the flesh, ye
die:”) but let every man believe as he like, either giving the fire truly to
the body, and the worm figuratively to the soul, or both properly to the
body : for we have fully proved already that a creature may burn and
yet not consume, may live in pain and yet not die: which he that denies
knows not Him that is the author of all nature’s wonders, that God who
has made all the miracles that I erst recounted, and thousand thousands
more, and more admirable, shutting them all in the world, the most*
admirable work of all. Let every man therefore choose what to think
of this, whether both the fire and the worm plague the body, or whether
the worm have a metaphorical reference to the soul. The truth of this
question shall then appear plainly, when the knowledge of the saints shall
be such as shall require no trial of it, but only shall be fully satisfied and
resolved by the perfection and plentitude of the divine Wisdom. For
now we know but in part, until that which is perfect be come, but yet
may we not believe those bodies to be such that the fire can work them
no anguish nor torment.

CHAPTER X.,

Whether the fire of hell if it be corporeal, can take effect upon the incorporeal
devils.

Bur here now is another question : whether this fire, if it la, |
IT é : ue not
spiritually, but only by a bodily touch, can inflict any roreene = the

*

Of the City of God. 305

devil and his angels? they are to remain in one fire with the damned,

according to our Saviour’s own words: “ Depart from Me, ye cursed,

into everlasting fire, which is prepared for the devil and his angels.”
But the devils, according as some learned men suppose, have bodies of
condensed air, such as we feel in a wind; and this air is passible, and
may suffer burning, the heating of baths proves, where the air is set on
fire to heat the water, and does that which first it suffers. If any will
oppose, and say the devils have no bodies at all, the matter is not great,

nor much to be stood upon. For why may not unbodied spirits feel

the force of bodily fire, as well as man’s incorporeal soul is now included
in a carnal shape, and shall at that day be bound into a body for ever.

These spiritual devils therefore, or those devilish spirits, though strangely,
yet shall they be truly bound in this corporeal fire, which shall torment
them for all that they are incorporeal. Nor shall they be so bound in it,
that they shall give it a soul as it were, and so become both one living
creature, but as I said, by a wonderful power shall be so bound that
instead of giving it life, they shall from it receive intolerable torment,
although the coherence of spirits and bodies, whereby both become one
creature, be as admirable, and exceed all human capacity. And surely
I should think the devils shall burn them, as the rich glutton did, when
he cried, saying, “ I am tormented in this flame,” but that I should be
answered that that fire was such as his tongue was, to cool which, he
seeing Lazarus afar off, entreated him to help him with a little water on
the tip of his finger. He was not then in the body but in soul only;
such likewise (that is incorporeal) was the fire he burned in, and the
water he wished for, as the dreams of those that sleep and the vision of
men in ecstasies are, which present the forms of bodies, and yet are not
bodies indeed. And though man see these things only in spirit, yet
thinks he himself so like to his body, that he cannot discern whether
he have it on or no. But that hell, that lake of fire and brimstone,
shall be real, and the fire corporeal, burning both men and devils, the.
one in flesh and the other in air: the one in the body adherent to the
spirit, and the other in spirit only adherent to the fire, and yet not in-
fusing life, but feeling torment for one fire shall torment, both men and
devils, Christ has spoken it.

CHAPTER XI.

Whether it be not justice that the time of the pains should be proportioned
to the time of the sins and crimes.

But some of the adversaries of God’s city, hold it injustice for him that

has offended but temporarily, to be bound to suffer pain eternally, this

(they say) is utterly unjust. As though they knew any law that adapted the

time of the punishment to the time in which the crime was committed.

Eight kinds of punishment does Tully affirm the laws to inflict :

damages, imprisonment, whipping, like for like, public disgrace, banish-
U

306 St Augustine.

ment, death, and bondage, which of these can be performed in so little
time as the offence is, excepting the fourth, which yields every man the
same measure that he metes unto others, according to that of the law,
“ An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth”? Indeed one may lose his
eye by this law, in as small a time as he put out another man’s by
violence. But if a man kiss another man’s wife, and be therefore ad-
judged to be whipped, is not that which he did in a moment, paid for bya
good deal longer sufferance? is not his short pleasure repaid with a longer
pain? And what for imprisonment? Is every one judged to lie there
no longer than he was in doing his villainy? Nay, that servant that has
but violently touched his master, is by a just law doomed unto many
years’ imprisonment. And as for damages, disgraces, and banishments,
are not many of them dateless, and lasting a man’s whole life, wherein
they bear a proportion with the pains eternal? Fully eternal they cannot
be, because the life which they afflict is but temporal, and yet the sins
they punish are all committed in an instant, nor would any man advise
that the continuance of the penalty should be measured by the time of
the fact, for that, be it murder, adultery, sacrilege, or what villainy soever,
is quickly despatched, and consequently is not to be weighed by the
length of time, but by the foulness of the crime. And as for him that
deserves death by an offence, does the law hold the time that he is
dying, to be the satisfaction for his guilt, or his being taken away from
the fellowship of men, which? That then which the terrestrial city
can do by the first death, the celestial can effect by the second, in clear-
ing herself of malefactors. For as the laws of the first cannot call a dead
man back again into their society, no more do the laws of the second
call him back to salvation that is once entered into the second death.
How then are our Saviour’s words true, say they, “‘With what measure ye
mete, with the same shall men mete to you again :” if temporal sins
be rewarded with eternal pains? ©, but you mark not that those
words have a reference to the returning of evil for evil in our nature,
and not in one proportion of time: that is, he that does evil, shall suffer
evil, without limitation of any time: although this place be more
properly understood of the judgments and condemnations whereof the
Lord did there speak. So that he that judges unjustly, if he be judged
unjustly, is paid in the same measure that he meted withal, though not
what he did: for he did wrong in judgment, and such like he suffers:
but he did it unjustly, yet nevertheless he is repaid according to justice.

CHAPTER XII.

The greatness of Adam's sin, inflicting eternal condemnation upon all that
are out of the state of grace.

But therefore does man imagine, that this infliction of eternal torment
1s injustice, because his frail imperfection cannot discern the horrible-
ness of that offence that was the first procurer thereof. For the fuller

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fruition man had of God, the greater impiety was it for him to renounce
Him, and therein was he worthy of everlasting evil, in that he destroyed
his own good, that otherwise had been everlasting. Hence came con-
demnation upon all the stock of man, parent and offspring undergoing
one curse, from which none can be ever freed, but by the free and gracious
mercy of God, which makes a separation of mankind, to shew in one of
the remainders the power of grace, and in the other the revenge of
justice. Both which could not be expressed upon all mankind, for if
all had tasted of the punishments of justice, the grace and mercy of the
Redeemer had had no place in any : and again, if all had been redeemed
from death, there had been no object left for the manifestation of God’s
justice : but now there is more left, than taken to mercy, that so it might
appear what was due unto all, without any impeachment of God’s justice,
who notwithstanding having delivered so many, has herein bound us for
ever to praise His gracious commiseration.

CHAPTER XIII.

Against such as hold, that the torments after the judgment shall be but
the means whereby the souls shall be purified,

SomE Platonists there are who though they assign a punishment to every
sin, yet hold they that all such inflictions, be they human or divine, in
this life or in the next, tend only to the purgation of the soul from
enormities. Whereupon Virgil having said of the souls—

“ Hinc metuunt cupiuntque,” &c.
‘ Hence fear, desire,’ &c.
And immediately :

“ Quin ut supremo cum lumine vita reliquit,

' Non tamen omne malum miseris, nec funditiis omnes
Corporez excedunt pestes, penitusque necesse est,
Multa dit concreta modis inolescere miris.

Ergo exercentur pcenis, veterumque malorum
Supplicia expendunt, alize panduntur inanes
Suspense ad ventos, aliis sub gurgite vasto
Infectum elvitur scelus, aut exuritur igni.”

‘ For when the souls do leave the bodies dead,
Their miseries are not yet finished :
Nor all their times of torment yet complete :
Many small crimes must needs make one that’s great.
Pain therefore purgeth them, and makes them fair
From their old stains : some hang in dusky air,
Some in the deep do pay the debt of sin,
And fire is chosen to cleanse others in.’

They that hold this, affirm that no pains at all are to be suffered after
_ death, but only such as purge the souls, and those shall be cleared of

308 St Augustine.

all their earthly contagion by some of the three upper elements, the air,
the fire, or the water. The air, in that he says, Suspense ad ventos: the
water, by the words, Sub gurgite vasto ; the fire is expressly named, aut
exuritur ignt. Now indeed we do confess that there are certain pains
during this life, which do not properly afflict such as are not bettered but
made worse by them, but belong only to the reforming of such as take them
fer corrections. All other pains, temporal and eternal, are laid upon every
one as God pleases, by His angels good or bad, either for some sin past,
or wherein the party afflicted now lives, or else to exercise and declare
the virtue of His servants. For if one man hurt another willingly, or
by chance, it is an offence in him to do any man harm, by will or through
ignorance, but God whose secret judgment assigned it to be so, offends
not at all. As for temporal pain, some endure it here, and some here-
after, and some both here and there, yet all is past before the last judg-
ment. But all shall not come into these eternal pains (which notwith-
‘standing shall be eternal after the last judgment, unto them that endure
them temporally after death). For some shall be pardoned in the world
to come that are not pardoned in this, and acquitted there and not here
from entering into pains eternal, as I said before.

CHAPTER XIV.
The temporal pains of this life afflicting all mankind.

But few there be that endure none of these pains until after death.
Some indeed I have known and heard of that never had hout’s sickness
until their dying day, and lived very long, though notwithstanding man’s
whole life be a pain “in that it is a temptation and a warfare upon
earth,” as holy Job says, for ignorance is a great punishment, and there-
fore you see that little children are forced to avoid it by stripes and
sorrows, that also which they learn being such a pain to them, that
sometimes they had rather endure the punishments that enforce them to
learn it, than to learn that which would avoid them. Who would not
tremble and rather choose to die than to be an infant again, if he were
put to such a choice? We begin it with tears, and therein presage our
future miseries. Only Zoroasters smiled (they say) when he was born:
but his unnatural mirth boded him no good: for he was, by report, the
first inventor of magic, which notwithstanding stood him not in a pin’s
stead in his misfortunes, for Ninus, king of Assyria overcame him in
battle and took his kingdom of Bactria from him. So that it is such an
impossibility that those words of the Scripture, “ Great travail is created
for all men and an heavy yoke upon the sons of Adam from the day that
they got out of their mother’s womb, until the day that they return unto
the mother of all things,” should not be fulfilled, that the very infants,
being baptised, and therein quit from all their guilt, which then is only

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original, are notwithstanding much and often afflicted, yea even some-
times by the incursion of devils, which notwithstanding cannot hurt them
if they die at that tenderness of age.

CHAPTER XV.

That the scope of God’s redeeming us is wholly pertinent to the
world to come.

But yet notwithstanding in this heavy yoke that lies upon Adam’s
children from their birth to their burial, we have this one means left us,
to live soberly, and to weigh that our first parent’s sin has made this life
but a pain to us, and that all the promises of the New Testament belong
only to the heritage laid up for us in the world to come: pledges we
have here, but the performance due thereto we shall not have till then.
Let us now therefore walk in hope, and profiting day by day let us mortify
the deeds of the flesh, by the Spirit, for God knows all that are His, and
as many as are led by the Spirit of God, are the sons of God, but by
grace, not by nature, for God’s only Son by nature, was made the Son
of man for us, that we being the sons of men by nature might become
the sons of God in Him by grace, for He remaining changeless, took
our nature upon Him, and keeping still His own divinity, that we being
changed might leave our frailty and aptness to sin, through the partici-
pation of His righteousness and immortality and keep that which He
had made good in us, by the perfection of that good which is in Him:
for as we all fell into this misery by one man’s sin, so shall we ascend
unto that glory by one (deified) Man’s righteousness. Nor may any
imagine that he has had this pass, until he be there where there is no
temptation, but all full of that peace which we seek by these conflicts of
the spirit against the flesh, and the flesh against the spirit. This war
had never been, had man kept his will in that right way wherein it was
first placed. But refusing that, now he fights in himself, and yet this
inconvenience is not so bad as the former, for happier far is he that
strives against sin, than he that allows it sovereignty over him. Better
is war with hope of eternal peace, than thraldom without any thought of
freedom. We wish the want of this war though, and God inspires us to
aim at that orderly peace wherein the inferior obeys the superior in all
things: but if there were hope of it in this life (as God forbid we should
imagine) by yielding to sin, yet ought we rather to stand out against it,
in all our miseries, than to give over our freedoms to sin, by yielding
to it.
CHAPTER XVI.
The laws of grace, that all the regenerate are blessed in.

But God’s mercy is so great in the vessels whom He has prepared for
glory, that even the first age of man, which is his infancy, where the

310 St Augustine.

flesh rules without control, and the second, his childhood, where his —
reason is so weak that it gives way to all enticements, and the mind is
altogether incapable of religious precepts; if notwithstanding they be
washed in the fountain of regeneration, and he die at this or that age,
he is translated from the powers of darkness to the glories of Christ, and
freed from all pains, eternal and purificatory. His regeneration only is"
sufficient to clear him from that after death which his carnal generation had
contracted with death. But when he comes to years of discretion, and is
capable of good counsel, then must he begin a fierce conflict with vice
lest it allure him to damnation. Indeed the freshwater soldier is the
more easily put to flight, but practice will make him valorous, and to
pursue victory with all his endeavour, which he must evermore essay by
a weapon called “the love of true righteousness,” and this is kept in the
faith of Christ, for if the command be present, and the assisting spirit
absent, the very forbidding of the crime inflames the perverse flesh to
run the sooner into it, sometimes producing open enormities, and some-
times secret ones, far worse than the other, in that pride, and ruinous
self-conceit, persuades men that they are virtues.

Then therefore sin is quelled, when it is beaten down by the love of
God, which none but He gives and He only, by Jesus Christ the
Mediator of God and man, who made Himself mortal, that we might be
made eternal: few are so happy to pass their youth without taint of
some damnable sin or other, either in deed, opinion, or so ; but let them,
above all, seek to suppress by the fulness of spirit all such evil motions
as shall be incited by the looseness of the flesh. Many, having betaken
themselves to the law, becoming prevaricators thereof through sin, are
afterwards fain to fly unto the law of grace assistant, which making them
both truer penitents, and stouter opponents, subjects their spirits to God,
and so they get the conquest of the flesh. He therefore that will escape
hell fire, must be both baptised and justified in Christ, and’ this is his
only way to pass from the devil unto Him. And let him assuredly
believe that there is no purgatory pains except before that great and
terrible judgment. Indeed, it is true that the fire of hell shall be more
forcible against some than against others, according to the diversity
of their deserts, whether it be adapted in nature to the quality of their
merits, or remain one fire unto all, and yet be not felt alike of all.

CHAPTER XVII.
Of some Christians that held that hell’s pains should not be eternal.

Now must I have a gentle disputation with certain tender hearts of our
own religion, who think that God, who has justly doomed the condemned
unto hell fire, will after a certain space, which His goodness shall think
fit for the merit of each man’s guilt, deliver them from that torment.
And of this opinion was Origen, in far more pitiful manner, for he held

Of the City of God. 3It

that the devils themselves after a set time expired, should be loosed
from their torments, and become bright angels in heaven, as they were
before. But this, and other of his opinions, chiefly that rotation and
circumvolution of misery and bliss which he held that all mankind
should run in, gave the Church cause to pronounce him anathema:
seeing he had lost this seeming pity, by assigning a true misery, after a
while, and a false bliss, unto the saints in heaven, where they (if they
were true) could never be sure of remaining. But far otherwise is their
tenderness of heart, which hold that this freedom out of hell shall only
be extended unto the souls of the damned after a certain time appointed
for every one, so that all at length shall come to be saints in heaven.
But if this opinion be good and true, because it is merciful, why then
the farther it extends, the better it is: so that it may as well include the
freedom of the devils also, after a longer continuance of time. Why
then ends it with mankind only, and excludes them? nay, but it dares
go no farther, they dare not extend their pity unto the devil. But if any
one does so, he goes beyond them, and yet sins in erring more de-
formedly, and more perversely against the express word of God, though
he think to shew the more pity herein.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Of those that hold that the intercession of the saints shall save all men
from damnation.

I HAvE talked with some that seem to reverence the Scriptures, and yet
are no good livers, who would make God far more merciful than the
other. For as for the wicked, they confess that they deserve to be
plagued, but mercy shall have the upper hand when it comes to judg-
ment: for God shall give them all unto the prayers and intercession of
the saints, who if they prayed for them when they insulted over them as
enemies, will doit much more now when they see them prostrate at their
feet like slaves. For it is incredible (say they) that the saints should
forget mercy when they are most holy and perfect, who prayed for their
foes, when they were not without sin themselves. Surely then they will
pray for them being now become their suppliants, when as they have no
sin at all left in them. And will not God hear them, when their prayers
have such perfection? Then bring they forth the testimony of the
Psalm which the other, that held the saving of all the damned after a
time, do allege also, but these affirm that it makes more for them: the
words are these: “ Hath God forgotten to be merciful, or will He shut
up His mercies in displeasure?” His displeasure (say they) condemns
all that are unworthy of eternal life, to eternal torment. But if this con-
demnation continue, little or long, how can it be then that the Psalm
should rightly say, “ Will He shut up His mercy in displeasure?” It says
not, “ Will He shut them long,” but implies that He will not shut them
up at all. Thus do they prove that the judgment of God is not false,

a

312 St Augustine.

although He condemn none, no more than His threatening to destroy
Nineveh was false, though it was not effected (say they) notwithstanding
that He promised it without exception. He said not, “I will destroy
it unless it repent,” but plainly without addition, “ Nineveh shall be de-
stroyed.” This threatening do they hold true, because God foretold
plainly what they had deserved, though He spake not that which He
meant to do. For though He spared them, yet knew He that they
would repent: and yet did He absolutely promise their destruction.
This therefore (say they) was true in the truth of His severity, which
they had deserved, but not in respect of His mercy, which He did not
shut up in displeasure, because He would shew mercy unto their prayers,
whose pride He had threatened to punish. _ If, therefore, He shewed
mercy then (say they), when He knew He should thereby grieve His
holy prophet, how much more will He shew it now when all His saints
shall entreat for it? Now this surmise of theirs they think the Scrip-
tures do not mention, because men should be reclaimed from vice by
fear of tedious or eternal torment, and because some should pray for
those that will not amend: and yet the Scriptures (say they) do not
utterly conceal it: for what does that of the Psalm intend, “ How great
is Thy goodness which Thou hast laid up for them that fear Thee!
Thou keepest them secret in Thy tabernacle from the strife of tongues.”
That is, say they, this great sweetness of God’s mercy is kept secret
from us, to keep us in the more awe, and therefore the apostle says
God “has shut up all in unbelief, that He might have mercy on all,” to
shew that He will condemn none. Yet these opinionists will not ex-
tend this general salvation unto the devils, but make mankind the only
object of their pity, promising impunity to their own bad lives withal,
by pretending a general mercy of God unto the whole generation of
man: and in this, they that extend God’s mercy unto the devil and his
angels do quite exceed these latter,

CHAPTER XIX.

Of such as hold that heretics shall be saved, in that they have partaken of
the body of Christ.

OTHERS there are that clear not hell of all, but only of such as are bap-
tised and partakers of “ Christ’s body,” and these (they say) are saved,
be their lives or doctrines whatsoever, whereupon Christ Himself said,
‘This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that he which
eateth of it should not die. Iam the living bread which came down
from heaven.” Therefore (say these men) must all such be saved of
necessity, and glorified by everlasting life.

Of the City of God. 313

CHAPTER XX.
Of such as allow this deliverance only to wicked and revolted Catholics.

ANOTHER sort restrain the former position only to Catholics, live they
never so vilely, because they have received Christ truly and been in-
grafted in His body: of which the apostle says: “We that are many
are one bread and one body, because we all are partakers of one Bread.”
So that fall they into never so bad heresies afterwards, yea, even into
paganism, yet because they received the baptism of Christ in His
Church, they shall not perish for ever, but shall receive eternal life, nor
shall their guilt make their torments everlasting, but only temporal,
though they may last a long time, and be extremely painful.

CHAPTER XXI.

Of such as affirm that all that abide in the Catholic faith shall be saved
Jor that faith only, be their lives never so worthy of damnation.

THERE are some, who because it is written, “He that endureth to the
end, he shall be saved,” do affirm that only they that continue Catholics
(howsoever they live) shall be saved by the merit of that foundation,
whereof the Apostle says, “ Other foundation can no man lay, than that
which is laid, which is Christ Jesus.” And if any man build on this
foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, timber, hay or stubble ; every
man’s work shall be made manifest, for the day (of the Lord) shall de-
clare it, because it shall be revealed by the fire, and the fire shall try
every man’s work, of what sort it is. If any man’s work that he has
built upon abide, he shall receive wages. If any man’s work burn he
shall lose, but he shall be safe himself, yet as it were by fire. So that
all Christian ‘Catholics (say they) having Christ for their foundation
(which no heretics have, being cut off from His body), be their lives
good or bad (as those that build timber, hay, or stubble, upon this
foundation), shall nevertheless be saved by fire, that is, shall be delivered
after they have endured the pains of the fire which punishes the wicked

_ in the last judgment.

CHAPTER XXIi.

Of such as affirm that the sins committed amongst the works of mercy shall
not be called into judgment.

Anp some I have met with that hold that none shall be damned eternally,
but such as neglected to satisfy for their sins by alms-deeds: alleging

that of James: “There shall be judgment merciless unto him that

sheweth no mercy.” Wherefore he that does (say they), though he
amend not his life, but live sinfully even in these merciful works, shall
nevertheless have so merciful a judgment, that he shall either not be

—_ ~

314 St Augustine.

punished at all, or, at least, be freed from his pain after his sufferance
of them for some certain space, more or less. And therefore the Judge of
the quick and dead would mention no other thing in His words to those
on both sides of Him, for the salvation of the one part and the condem-
nation of the other, but only the alms-deeds which they had either done
or neglected. To which also (say they) does that part of the Lord’s
Prayer pertain, “ Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that tres-
pass against us.” For he that forgives an offence done to him, does a
work of mercy: which Christ so approved, that He said: “ If ye do for-
give men their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you, but
if ye do not forgive men their trespasses, no more will your Heavenly
Father forgive you your trespasses.” So that hereunto belongs also
_ the aforesaid place of Saint James: “ There shall be judgment merci-
less,” &c. The Lord said not, “‘ Your small trespasses,” say they, “ nor
your great,” but generally, ‘‘ your trespasses,” and therefore they hold
that those that live never so viciously until their dying day, have not-
withstanding their sins absolutely pardoned every day by this prayer
used every day, if withal they do remember freely to forgive all such as
have offended them, when they entreat for pardon. When all those errors
are confuted, I will, God willing, make an end of this present boak.

CHAPTER XXIII.
Against those that exclude both men and devils from pains eternal.

First then we must shew why the Church has condemned them that
affirm that even the very devils after a time of torment, shall be taken
to mercy. The reason is this, those holy men, so many and so learned
in both the laws of God, the old and the new, did not envy the modifi-
cation and beatitude of those spirits, after their long and great
extremity of torture, but they saw well, that the words of our Saviour
could not be untrue, which He promised to pronounce in the last judg-
ment, saying: ‘ Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire which
is prepared for the devil and his angels.” Hereby shewing that they
should burn in everlasting fire ; likewise in the Revelation: “‘ The devil
that deceived them was cast into a lake of fire and brimstone, where the
beast and the false prophet shall be tormented even day and night, for
evermore.” ‘There he says, “everlasting,” and here “for evermore,” in
both places excluding all termination and end of the time. Wherefore
there is no reason either stronger or plainer to assure our belief that the
devil and his angels shall never more return to the glory and righteous-
ness of the saints, than because the Scriptures, that deceive no man,
tell us directly and plainly, “that God hath not spared them, but cast
them down into hell, and delivered them unto chains of darkness, there
to be kept unto the condemnation in the just judgment, then to be
cast into eternal fire and there to burn for evermor ” If this be true

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how can either all or any men be delivered out of this eternity of pains,
if our faith whereby we believe the devil to be everlastingly tormented,
be not hereby infringed ? for if those (either all or some part) to whom
it shall be said, ‘ Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire which
is prepared for the devil and his angels,” shall not continue for ever in
the fire, what reason have we to think that the devil and his angels shall ?
Shall the word of God, spoken alike both to men and devils, be proved
true upon the devils and not upon the men? So indeed would man’s
surmises be of more certainty than God’s promises. But seeing that
cannot be, they that desire to escape this pain eternal, must cease to
argue against God, and take His yoke upon them while they have time.

For what foolishness were it to value the pains eternal by a fire only
of a long continuance, but yet to believe assuredly that life eternal has
no end at all, seeing that the Lord in the same place including both
these parts in one sentence, said plainly, “ These shall go into everlast-
ing pains, and the righteous into life eternal.” Thus does He make
them parallels: here are everlasting pains, and there is eternal life. Now
to say this life shall never end, but that pain shall, were grossly absurd.
Wherefore seeing that the eternal life of the saints shall be without end,
so therefore is it a consequent that the everlasting pain of the damned
shall be as endless as the other's beatitude.

CHAPTER XXIV.

Against those that would prove all damnation frustrate by the prayers of
the saints.

Tuis is also against those who under colour of more pity, oppose the
express word of God: and say that God’s promises are true in that men
are worthy of the plagues He threatens, not that they shall be laid upon
them. For He will give them (say they) unto the entreaties of his
saints, who will be the readier to pray for them then, in that they are
more purely holy, and their prayers will be the more powerful, in that
they are utterly exempt from all touch of sin and corruption. Well, and
why then in this their pure holiness and powerfulness of prayer will
they not entreat for the angels that are to be cast into everlasting fire,
that it would please God to mitigate His sentence, and set them free
from that intolerable fire? Some perhaps will pretend that the holy
angels will join with the saints (as then there follows) in prayer both
the angels and men also that are guilty of damnation, that God in His
mercy would be pleased to pardon their wicked deserts. But there is no
sound Christian that ever held this, or ever will hold it; for otherwise,
there were no reason why the Church should not pray for the devil and
his angels, seeing that her Lord God has willed her to pray for her
enemies. But the same cause that stays the Church from praying for
the damned spirits (her known enemies) at this day, the same shall

316 St Augustine.

hinder her for praying for the reprobate souls, at this day of judgment,
notwithstanding her fulness of perfection. As now, she prays for her
enemies in mankind, because this is the time of wholesome repentance,
and therefore her chief petition for them is, “that God would grant
them penitence and escape from the snares of the devil, who are taken
from him at his will,” as the apostle says. But if the Church had this
light that she could know any of those who (though they live yet upon
the earth, yet) are predestinated to go with the devil into that everlasting
fire ; she would offer as few prayers for them,as she does for him. But see-
ing that she has not this knowledge, therefore prays she for all her
foes in the flesh, and yet is not heard for them all, but only for those
who are predestinated to become her sons, though they be as yet her
adversaries. If any shall die her impenitent foes, and not return into
her bosom at all, does she pray for them? No, because they that
before death are not ingraffed into Christ, are afterward reputed as
associates of the devil: and therefore the same cause that forbids her
to pray for the reprobate souls as then, stops her for praying for the
apostatical angels as now; and the same reason there is why we
pray for all men living, and yet will not pray for the wicked,
nor infidels, being dead. For the prayer either of the Church or of
some godly persons is heard for some departed this life: but for them
which being regenerated in Christ, have not spent their life so wickedly,
that they may be judged unworthy of such mercy: or else so devoutly.
that they may be found to have no need of such mercy. Even as also
after the resurrection there shall be some of the dead which shall obtain
mercy after the punishments, which the spirits of the dead do suffer,
that they may not be cast into everlasting fire. For otherwise that
should not be truly spoken concerning some, that “they shall not be
forgiven, neither in this world, nor in the world to come:” unless there
were some who, although they have no remission in this, yet might have
it in the world to come. But when it shall be said of the Judge of the
quick and the dead: ‘Come, ye blessed of My Father, possess the
kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world ;” and to
others on the contrary, ‘‘ Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire
which is prepared for the devil and his angels :” it were too much pre-
sumption to say, that any of them should escape everlasting punishment
whom the Lord has condemned to eternal torments, and so go about
by the persuasion of this presumption, either also to despair, or doubt
of eternal life. Let no man therefore so understand the psalmist when
he says, “‘ Will God forget to have mercy, or will He shut up His loving-
kindness in displeasure?” that he suppose that the sentence of God is
true concerning the good, false concerning the wicked ; or that it is
true concerning good men and evil angels, but concerning evil men to
be false? For that which is recorded in the psalm belongs to the
vessels of mercy, and to the sons of the promise, of which the prophet —

Of the City of God. 317

himself was one, who, when he had said, “ Will God forget to have
mercy : will He shut up His loving-kindness in displeasure?” straight-
way adds, “And I said, it is mine own infirmity, I will remember the
years of the right hand of the Highest”? Verily he has declared what
he meant by these words: “ Will the Lord shut up His loving-kindness
in displeasure?” For truly this mortal life is the displeasure of God,
wherein “man is made like unto vanity, and his days pass away like a
shadow.” In which displeasure, nevertheless, “God will not forget to
be gracious, by causing His sun to shine upon the good and the evil, and
the rain to fall upon the just and unjust :” and so He does not shut up
His loving-kindness in displeasure, and especially in that which the
psalm expresses here, saying, “I will remember the years of the right
hand of the Highest:” because in this most miserable life, which is the
displeasure of God, He changes the vessels of mercy into a better state,
although as yet His displeasure remains in the misery of this corruption :
because He does not shut up His mercies in His displeasure. When
as therefore the verity of the Divine song may be fulfilled in. this
manner, it is not necessary that it should be understood of that
place, where they which pertain not to the City of God shall be punished
with everlasting punishment. But they which please to stretch this sen-
tence even to the torments of the damned, at least let them so understand
it, that the displeasure of God remaining in them which is due to eternal
punishment, yet nevertheless that God does not shut up His loving-
kindness in this His heavy displeasure, and cause them not to. be
tormented with such rigour of punishments, as they have deserved :
(yet not so that they may escape), or at any time have an end of those
punishments, but that they shall be more easy than they have deserved.
For so both the wrath of God shall remain, and He shall not shut up
His loving-kindness in His displeasure. But I do not confirm this thing,
because I do not contradict it.

But not only I, but the sacred and Divine Scripture does reprove and
convict them most plainly and fully, which think that to be spoken
rather by the way of threatening than truly, when it is said, “ Depart
from Me, ye wicked, into everlasting fire;” and also, “They shall go
into everlasting punishment: and their worm shall not die, and the fire
shall not be extinguished,” &c. For the Ninevites “did sow a fruitful
repentance in this life, as in the field, in which God would have that to
be sown with tears, which should afterward be reaped with joy.” And
yet who will deny that to be fulfilled in them which the Lord had
spoken before, unless he cannot well perceive, that the Lord does not
only overthrow sinners in His anger, but likewise in His mercy? For
sinners are confounded by two manner of ways, either as the Sodomites,
that men suffer punishments for their sins, or as the Ninevites, that the
sins of men be destroyed by repenting. For Nineveh is destroyed
which was evil, and good Nineveh is built, which was not; for the

318 St Augustine.

walls and houses standing still, the city is overthrown in her wicked
manners. And so, though the prophet was grieved because that came
not to pass, which those men feared to come by his prophecy: never-
theless that was brought to pass which was foretold by the foreknowledge
of God; because He knew, which had forespoken it, how it was to be
fulfilled in a better manner. But that they may know who are merciful
towards an obstinate sinner, what that means which is written: “ How
great, O Lord, is the multitude of Thy sweetness, which Thou hast
hidden for them that fear Thee,” let them also read that which follows :
“But Thou hast performed it to them which hope in Thee.” For
what is, “Thou hast hidden for them that fear Thee, Thou hast per-
formed to them which hope in Thee,” but that the righteousness of God
is not sweet unto them because they know it not which establish their
own righteousness for the fear of punishments, which righteousness is
in the law? For they have not tasted of it. For they hope in them-
selves, not in Him, and therefore the multitude of the sweetness
of God is hidden unto them; for truly they fear God, but with that
servile fear which is not in love, because perfect love casteth out fear.
Therefore He performs His sweetness to them which hope in Him by
inspiring His love into them, that when they glory with chaste fear, not
in that which love casts away, but which remains for ever and ever,
they may glory in the Lord. For Christ is the righteousness of God:
“Who unto us of God,” as the apostle says, “is made wisdom, and
righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.” As it is written,
‘Let him which rejoiceth, rejoice in the Lord ;” they which will estab-
lish their own righteousness, know not this righteousness which grace
gives without merits, and therefore they are not subject to the righteous-
ness of God which is Christ. In which righteousness there is great
abundance of the sweetness of God, wherefore it is said in the Psalm:
**O taste and see how sweet the Lord is.” And we truly having a taste,
and not our fill of it in this our pilgrimage, do rather hunger and thirst
after it, that we may be satisfied with it afterward when we see Him as
He is, and that shall be fulfilled which is written: ‘I shall be satisfied
when Thy glory shall be manifested.” So Christ effects great abundance
of His sweetness to those which hope in Him. But if God hide that
sweetness which they think to be theirs for them which fear Him,
because He will not condemn the wicked, that not knowing this
thing, and fearing to be condemned, they might live well, and so
there may be some which may pray for the wicked, how then does
He perform it to them which hope in Him? seeing that, as they
dream, by this sweetness He will not condemn them which do not
hope in Him. Therefore let us seek that sweetness of His, which
He performs to them which hope in Him, and not that which He is
thought to effect unto them which contemn and blaspheme Him. In
vain therefore man seek for that, when he is departed out of the body,

Of the City of God. R19

which he has neglected to obtain to himself being in the body. That
saying also of the apostle, “ For God has shut up all in unbelief, that
He may have mercy on all,” is not spoken to that end that He will con-
demn none, but it appears before in what sense it was spoken. For
when the apostle spake unto the Gentiles, to whom now believing,
he wrote his epistles, concerning the Jews, who should afterwards be-
lieve :. “As ye,” says he, “in time past have not believed God, yet
now have obtained mercy through their unbelief: even so now have
they not believed by the mercy shewed unto you, that they may also
obtain mercy.” Then he adds, whereby they flatter themselves in their
errors, and says, “ For God hath shut up all in unbelief, that He may
have mercy on all.” Who are they all, but they of whom he did speak,
saying, as it were “Both ye and they”? Therefore God hath shut up
both Gentiles and Jews all in unbelief, whom He foreknew, and prede-
stinated to be made like the image of His Son: that being ashamed and
cast down by repenting for the bitterness of their unbelief, and con-
verted by believing, unto the sweetness of the mercies of God, might
proclaim that in the Psalm: “ How great is the multitude of thy sweet-
ness, O Lord, which Thou hast laid up for them which fear Thee:
but hast performed it to them which hope, not in themselves, but in
Thee.” Therefore He has mercy oz ai the vessels of mercy. What
means “on all”? That is to say, on those of the Gentiles, and also on
those of the Jews whom He has predestinated, called, justified, glorified,
not on all men, and He will condemn none of those.

CHAPTER XII.

Whether that such as being baptised by heretics, become wicked in life,
or amongst Catholics, and then fall away into heresies and schisms,
or continuing amongst Catholics, be of vicious conversation, can have
any hope of escaping damnation, by the privilege of the sacraments.

Now let us answer those who do both exclude the devils from salvation
(as the other before do), and also all men besides whatsoever, excepting
such as are baptised in Christ, and made partakers of His body and
blood, and these they will have saved, be their lives never so spotted by
sin or heresy. But the apostle does plainly control them, saying, “ ‘The
works of the flesh are manifest, which are adultery, fornication, unclean-
ness, wantonness, idolatry, &c., and such like whereof I tell you now as
I told you before that they which do such things shall not inherit the
kingdom of God.” This were false now, if that such men should be-
come saints, at any time whatsoever. But this is true Scripture, and
therefore that shall never come to pass. And if they be never made
partakers of the joys of heaven, then shall they be evermore bound in
the pains of hell, for there is no medium, wherein he that is not in bliss,
might have a place free from torment.

320 St Augustine.

and therefore it is fitting that, we see how our Saviour’s words may be
understood, where He says: ‘ This is the bread that came down from
heaven, that he that eateth of it, should not die. I am the living bread
which came down from heaven ; if any man eat of this bread, he shall
live for ever,” &c. Those whom we must answer by-and-by, have got an
interpretation for these places, somewhat more restrained than those
whom we are to answer at this present. For those other do not promise
delivery to all that receive the sacraments, but only to the Catholics
(of what manner of life soever), for they only are those that receive the
body of Christ, not only sacramentally, but truly also (say they) as
being the true members of His body, whereof the apostle says, “We
that are many are one bread and one body.” He therefore that is in
this unity of Christ’s members in one body, the sacrament whereof the
faithful do daily communicate, he is truly said to receive the body, and
to drink the blood of Christ. So that heretics and schismatics who
are cut off from this body, may indeed receive the same sacrament, but
it does them no good, but a great deal of hurt, in that great judg-
ment, where it will both make their pains more heavy, and their con-
tinuance eternal. For they are not in that unity of peace, which is
expressed in this sacrament.

But now these that can observe, that he that is not in Christ, cannot
receive His body truly, do overshoot themselves in promising absolution
(at one time or other) to all the fallers away into superstition, idolatry,
or heresy. First, because they ought to observe how absurd, and far
irom all likelihood it is, that those (be they more or less) that have left
the Church and become arch-heretics, should be in better estate than
those whom they have seduced to be heretics with them, before that
they were Catholics, and in the Church, if to be baptised, and to receive
Christ’s body in the Church, be the causes of those arch-heretic’s de-
livery. For an apostate, an opposer of the faith he has once professed,
is worse than he that opposes what he did never profess. Secondly, in
that the apostle himself controls them, concluding of the works of the
flesh, that, “They which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom
of God.’

Let not sinners therefore, and wicked men, secure themselves by
their continuance in the Church, in that it is written: “He that
endureth to the end, he shall be saved ;” nor by their iniquity renounce
Christ, their justice, in committing fornication, and either all or any
zart of those fleshly works which the apostle recounts, or such unclean-
ness as he would not name: for of all such, he says expressly, “ These
shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” Wherefore the doers of such.
deeds cannot but be in eternal pains, in that they are excluded from
the everlasting joys. For this kind of perseverance of theirs is no per-
severance in Christ, because it is not a true perseverance in His faith,
which the apostle defines, “To be such as worketh by love.” “And love,”

Of the City of God. 321

(as he says elsewhere) “worketh no evil.” So then these are no true
receivers of Christ’s body, in that they are none of His true members.
For (to omit other allegations) they cannot be both the members of
Christ and the members ofan harlot. And Christ Himself saying, “He
that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood, dwelleth in Me and I in him,”
shews what it is to receive Christ (not only sacramentally, but) truly :
for this is, “to dwell in Christ and Christ in him.” For thus He spoke
as if He had said, “ He that dwelleth not in Me, nor I in him, cannot say
he eateth My flesh, or drinketh My blood.” They therefore that are not
members of Christ, are not in Him: they that make themselves the
members of an harlot are no members of Christ, unless they purge away
their badness by repentance, and return to His goodness by a true
reconciliation.

CHAPTER XXVI.

What it ts to have Christ for the foundation: who they are that shall be
saved (as tt were) by fire.

Ay, but Christian Catholics (say they) have Christ for their foundation,
from whom they fell not, though they built badly upon it, in resemblance
of timber, straw, and stubble. So that faith is true, which holds Christ
the foundation, and though it bear some loss, in that the things which
are built upon it burn away, yet has it power to save him that holds it
(after some time of sufferance). But let St James answer these men
in a word: “If a man say he has faith, and have no works, can the
faith save him?” Who then is that (say they) of whom St Paul
says: “ He shall be safe himself, yet so as by fire”? Well, we will see
who that is: but surely it is no such as these would have it, for
else the apostles contradict one another. For if one says, ‘‘ Though a
man have lived wickedly, yet shall he be saved by faith, through fire :”
and the other, “If he have no works, can his faith save him?” then
shall we soon find who it is that shall be saved by fire, if first of all we
find what it is to have Christ for the foundation. To gather which, first,
from the nature of the simile, there is no work in building before the
foundation. Now every one has Christ in his heart thus far, that his
desire of temporal things (and sometimes of things unlawful), still pre-
tends Christ for the foundation thereof. But if he prefer these things
before Christ, though he seem to hold his faith, yet Christ is no founda-
tion unto him, in that he prefers those vanities before Him. And if he
both contemn good instruction, and prosecute bad actions, how much the
sooner shall he be convinced to set Christ at nothing, to esteem Him at
no value in vainer respects, by neglecting His command and allowance,
and in prevarication of both, following his own lustful exorbitances :
wherefore, if any Christian love an harlot, “and become one body with
Il. X

322 St Augustine.

her by coupling with her,” he has not Christ for his foundation. And if
a man love his wife, according to Christ, who can deny but that he has
Christ for his foundation? Admit his love be carnal, worldly, concupis-
cential, as the Gentiles loved, that knew not Christ: all this the apostle
does bear with, and therefore still may Christ be such a man’s founda-
tion. For if he prefer not these carnal affections before Christ, though he
build straw and stubble upon his foundation, yet Christ is that still, and
therefore such a man shall be saved by fire. For the fire of tribulation
shall purge away those carnal and worldly affections, which the bond of
marriage acquits from being damnable: and unto this fire, all the
calamities accident in this kind, as barrenness, loss of children, &c., have
reference. And in this case, he that builds thus, shall lose, because his
building shall not last, and these losses shall grieve him in that their
fruition did delight him. Yet shall the worth of his foundation save him,
in that if the persecutor should put it to his choice, whether he would
have Christ, or these his delights, he would choose Christ, and leave all
the rest. Now shall you hear Saint Paul describe a builder upon this
foundation with gold, silver, and precious stones. “The unmarried,”
says he, ‘‘careth for the things of the Lord, how he may please the
Lord.” And now for him that builds with wood, straw, and stubble.
“‘ He that is married careth for the things of the world, how he may please
his wife. Every man’s work shall be made manifest, for the day of the
Lord shall declare it,” that is, the day of tribulation, for it shall be
revealed by the fire.

This tribulation he calls fire, as we read also in another place. “The
furnace proves the potter’s vessel, and so doth the trial of affliction
try man’s thoughts.” So then the fire shall try every man’s work:
and if any work abide (as his will, that careth for the things of the Lord,
and how to please Him), “he shall receive wages,” that is, he shall
receive Him, of whom he thought, and for whom he cared. ‘“ But if
any man’s work burn he shall lose:” because he shall not have his
delights that he loved ; yet shall he be safe, in that he held his founda-
tion, despite all tribulation: but as it were by fire, for that which he
possessed in alluring love, he shall in the furnace of afflicting sorrow. This

. (think I) is the fire, that shall enrich the one and endamage the other,
trying both, yet condemning neither. If we say that the fire spoken of
here is that whereof Christ spoke to those on His left hand, ‘ Depart
from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire ;” and that all such as builded
timber, straw, and stubble upon their foundation, are part of the said
cursed, who notwithstanding, after a time of torment, are to be delivered
by the merit of their foundation ; then can we not think that those on
the right hand, to whom He shall say, “Come, ye blessed,” &c., are
any other, saving those that built gold, silver, and precious stones upon
the said foundation. But this fire of which the apostle speaks, shall be

ee

Of the City of God. 323

as a trial both to the good and the bad: both shall pass through it, for
the word says, “ Every man’s work shall be made manifest, for the day
of the Lord shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by the fire, and
the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.” If the fire try
both, and he that has an abiding work, be rewarded, and he whose
work shall burn, shall be endamaged, then cannot this be that everlast-
ing fire. For into that shall none enter but the cursed, on the left
hand, in the last judgment, whereas the blessed shall pass through this,
wherein some of them shall be so tried, that their building shall abide
unconsumed, and other some shall have their work burned, and yet
shall be saved themselves, in that their love unto Christ exceeded all
their carnal imperfections. And if they be saved, then shall they stand
on Christ’s right hand, and shall be part of those to whom it shall be
said, ‘Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom,” &c., and
not on the left hand amongst the cursed, to whom it shall be said,
“ Depart from Me,” &c. For none of these shall be saved by fire, but all
of them shall be bound for ever in that place where the worm never
dies, there shall they burn, world without end. But as for the time
between the bodily death and the last judgment, if any one say that
the spirits of the dead are all that while tried in such fire as never moves
those that have not built wood, straw, or stubble, afflicting only such as
have wrought such works, either here, or there, or both; or that man’s
worldly desires (being venial) shall pass the purging fire of tribulation
only in this world, and not in the other; if any hold thus, I contradict
him not; perhaps he may hold the truth. To this tribulation also may
belong the death of body, drawn from our first parents’ sin, and inflicted
upon each man sooner or later, according to his building So may also
the Church’s persecutions, wherein the martyrs were crowned, and all
the rest afflicted: for these calamities (like fire) tried both sorts of the
buildings, consuming both works and workmen, where they found not
Christ for the foundation ; and consuming the works only (and saving
the workmen by this loss) where they did find Him, “and stubble,” &c.,
built upon Him: but where they found works remaining to eternal life,
there they consumed nothing at all. Now in the last days, in the time
of Antichrist shall be such a persecution as never was before: and
many buildings both of gold and stubble, being all founded upon Christ,
shall then be tried by this fire, which will return joy to some, and loss
to others, and yet destroy none of them by reason of their firm founda-
tion. But whosoever he be, that loves (I do not say his wife, with
carnal affection, but even) such shows of piety as are utter aliens from
this sensuality, with such a blind desire that he prefers them before Christ,
this man has not Christ for his foundation, and therefore shall neither
be saved by fire, nor otherwise, because he cannot be conjoined with
Christ, who says plainly of such men, ‘“ He that loveth father or mother

324 St Augustine,

more than Me, is unworthy of Me. And he that loveth son or daughter
more than Me, is not worthy of Me.” But he that loves them carnally,
and yet prefers Christ for his foundation, and had rather lose them all,
than Christ, if he were driven to the loss of one, such a man shall be
saved, but as it were by fire, that is, his grief in the losing of them must
needs be as great as his delight was in enjoying them. “But he that
loves father, mother,” &c., according to Christ, to bring them unto His
kingdom, or be delighted in them because they are the members of Christ,
this love shall never burn away like wood, straw, stubble, but shall stand
as a building of gold, silver, and precious stones; for how can a man
love that, more than Christ, which he loves for Christ’s sake only ?

CHAPTER XXVII.

Against those that think those sins shall not be laid to their charge, where-
with they mixed some works of mercy.

Now a word with those that hold none damned but such as neglect to
do works of mercy worthy of their sins ; because St James says, “‘ There —
shall be judgment merciless to him that sheweth no mercy :” he there-
fore that does shew mercy (say they), be his life never so burdened with
sin and corruption, shall notwithstanding have a merciful judgment,
which will either acquit him from all pains, or at least deliver him after
a time of sufferance. And this made Christ distinguish the elect from
the reprobate only by their performance, and not performance of works
of mercy, the one whereof is rewarded with everlasting joy, and the
other with eternal pain: and as for their daily sins, that they may be
pardoned through these works of mercy, the Lord’s Prayer (say they)
does sufficiently prove: for as there is no day wherein a Christian says
not this prayer, so likewise is there no daily sin, but is pardoned when ©
we say, “And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass
against us,” if we perform this latter clause accordingly : for Christ (say
they) did not say, “If ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly —
Father will forgive you your small and daily ones,” but he said generally,
“ He will forgive you yours.” Be they therefore never so great, never so
ordinary, never so continual, yet works of mercy will wash them all
away. Well, they do well in giving their advice, to perform works of
mercy worthy of their sins: for if they should have said that any works
of mercy may obtain pardon for the greatest and most customary sins,
they would be guilty of much absurdity, for so might the richest man
for his tenpence a day, have a daily quittance for all his fornications,
homicides, and other sins whatsoever. But if it be an absurdity beyond
comparison to affirm this, then questionless if we make inquiry what
those works are that are worthy of pardon for sin, and whereof St John
Baptist spoke, saying, “Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of amend- —

Of the City of God. 325

ment of life,” assuredly we shall find that such as stab their own souls by
continual sin, have no such works as are meant of in this place: first,
because they do take violently from others far more than they bestow
charitably upon the poor, and yet in bestowing a little, they think they
feed Christ and purchase liberty of sinning from Him: thus run they
carelessly upon their condemnation, who if they should give away all their
whole estate unto the poor members of Christ to redeem one only sin,
yet if love that does no evil did not restrain them from any more such
enormities, they would thereby reap no good at all. He therefore that
will clear his sins by his works, must begin first at himself: for it is
unfit to do that to our neighbour which we will not do to ourself,
Christ Himself saying, ‘‘ Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself :” and
again, ‘ Love thine own soul (if thou wilt please God).” He therefore
that does not this work of mercy (that is, the pleasing of God) to his own
soul, how can he be said to do works of mercy sufficient to redeem his
sins? for it is written, ‘‘He that is wicked to himself to whom will he
be good? for alms-deeds do lift up the prayers of men to God.” What
saith the Scriptures? ‘‘ My son, hast thou sinned? do so no more,
but pray for thy sins past, that they may be forgiven thee.” For this
cause therefore must we do alms-deeds, that when we pray, our prayer
may be heard, that we may leave our former vices, and obtain refresh-
ment for ourselves by those works of mercy. Now Christ says that
He will impute the doing and omission of alms-deeds unto those of
the judgment, to shew how powerful they are to expiate offences past,
not to protect the continuers in sin; for those that will not abjure the
courses of impiety, cannot be said to perform any works of mercy.
And these words of Christ, ‘Inasmuch as ye did it not unto one of
these, ye did it not unto Me,” imply that they did no such works as
they imagined ; for if they gave bread unto the hungered Christian, as
if it were unto Christ Himself: for God cares not to whom you give,
but with what intent you give. He therefore that loves Christ in his
members, gives alms with intent to join himself to Christ, not that He
may have leave to leave him without being punished, for the more one
loves what Christ reproves, the farther off does he depart from Christ,
for what profiteth baptism unless justification follow it? Does not He
that said, ‘‘ Except a man be born again of water and of the Spirit, he
shall not enter into the Kingdom of God;” say also, “ Except your
righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, ye
shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven”? Why do men run to
baptism for fear of the first, and do not draw near to righteousness for
fear of the latter? ‘Therefore, as he that checks his brother’s sin, in
charity, by telling him he is a fool, notwithstanding all this, is not guilty
of hell fire: so, on the other side, he that loves not Christ in His
members, gives no alms to a Christian (as unto a Christian) though

326 St Augustine.

he stretch forth his hand unto one of Christ’s poor members: and he
that refuses to be justified in Christ, does not love Christ in any
respect.

But if one call his brother fool, in reproachful contempt, rather than
with intent to reform his imperfection, all the alms-deeds this man can
do will never benefit him, unless he be reconciled to him whom he
has injured ; for it follows in the same place: “ If then thou bringest thy
gift unto the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught
against thee, leave there thine offering, and go thy way: first be recon-
ciled to thy brother and then come and offer thy gift.” So that it is
nothing worth to do works of mercy to expiate any sin, and yet to con-
tinue in the sin still. As for the Lord’s Prayer, it does indeed blot out
our daily sins, it being daily said, “ And forgive us our trespasses,” if
withal the following clause be not only said, but performed also: “ As
we forgive them that trespass against us.” But indeed we say this
prayer because we do sin, not that we might sin, for our Saviour shews
us in this, that live we never so careful of shunning corruption, yet do we
every day fall into some sins for the remission of which we ought both to
pray, and to pardon such as have offended us, that we may be pardoned
ourselves. Wherefore Christ saith not this, “If ye forgive men their
trespasses, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you yours,” to give
hope to any man to persevere in daily crimes (whether we be borne out by
authority, or commit them by sleight and subtlety): but to instruct us,
that we are not without sin, though we may be without crime, as God
advised the priests in the Old Testament, “first to offer for their own
sins, and then for the people’s.” Let us mark these words of our great
Lord and Master with attention and diligence. He does not say, “ Your
Heavenly Father will forgive you any sin whatever,” but “He will for-
give you yours,” for in this place He taught His disciples (being already

_ justified) their daily prayer. What means He then by this same —

“yours” but such sins as the righteous themselves cannot be without ?
Wherefore, whereas they that would hereby take occasion to continue in
sin, affirm that Christ meant the greatest sins, because He said not,
“your smaller sins,” but “yours in general:” we on the contrary side,
considering unto whom He spoke, do understand His words to concern
small sins only, in that they to whom they were spoken were now
cleared of their greater.

Nor are those great sins indeed (which everyone ought to reform
himself, and avoid) ever forgiven, unless the guilty do fulfil the foresaid
clause, “ As we forgive them that trespass against us,” for if the least
sins (whereunto the righteous themselves are prone) cannot be remitted
but upon that condition, then much less shall the great and criminous

ones have this pardon, though they that used them, do cease their

further practice, if they continue inexorable in forgiving such as have

,
+

i
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Of the City of God. 327

offended them, for the Lord saith, “ If ye do not forgive men their tres-
passes, no more will your Heavenly Father forgive you your trespasses.”
And St James’ words are to the same purpose: “There shall be judg-
ment merciless to him that sheweth no mercy.” Remember but the
servant whom his master pardoned of a debt of 10,000 talents, and yet
made him to lie in prison for it afterwards, because he would not forgive
his fellow a debt but of an hundred pence. Wherefore in the vessels of
mercy, and the sons of promise the same apostle’s words are truly
effected, “ Mercy rejoiceth against (or above) judgment,” for those that
lived so holily that. they received others into the everlasting habitations,
who had made them their friends with the riches of iniquity; they
themselves were delivered by His mercy who justifies the sinner by
rewarding him according to grace, not according to merit. He that
professed this, “I was received to mercy (that I might be one of the
faithful),” was one of this justified number. Indeed such as are received
by this number into the everlasting habitations, are not of that merit that
they could be saved without the intercession of the Church triumphant,
and therefore in them does mercy more evidently rejoice against
judgment. Yet may we not think that every wicked man (being with-
out reformation) can be admitted thither, though he have been beneficial
to the saints and afforded them helps from his riches, which, whether
he had gotten by sinister means, or otherwise, yet are no true riches
(but only in the thoughts of iniquity) unto him, because he knows not
the true riches wherewith they abound that help such as he is into
those eternal mansions. Wherefore there must be a certain mean in
the lives of such mercy that it be neither so bad, that the alms-deeds
done unto those who being made friends to the doers, may help them
to heaven, be altogether fruitless, nor yet so good, that their own
sanctity without the mercies and suffrages of those whom they have
made their friends, can possess them of so high a beatitude. Now I
have often wondered that Virgil should have up this sentence of Christ,
“Make you friends of the riches of iniquity, that they may receive you
into the everlasting habitations.” WfRereunto this is much like, “He
that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet, shall have a prophet’s
reward,” &c., for this poet in describing the Elysian fields, which they
held the blessed souls to inhabit, does not only place those there whose
proper merits have deserved it, but also adds this: “ Quique sui me-
mores alios fecére merendo,” that is, such as respecting their own future
estate, deserved to be remembered by those others. Just as if he had
said, as every humble Christian says commonly in commending himself
to some holy man or other, “Remember me,” and endeavours to pro-
cure this remembrance by desert. But what the mean is here, and what
those sins are which hinder a man from heaven, and yet are remitted by
the intercession of his holy friends, it is both difficult to find, and

328 St Augustine.

dangerous to determine. I have sought thus long myself, and yet could
never find them out. Perhaps they are concealed to stir us the rather
to avoid all sin. For if we knew for what sins we might expect the
intercession of saints, our natural idleness would draw us on securely in
them, and make us rely so wholly upon the help of others, that we
should never seek to avoid them by reforming ourselves, but trust only
to those our friends whom we had procured by the unrighteous mam-
mon: whereas now, although our venial sin continue with us, and in
what measure we know not, yet our study to profit by prayer, is both
more fervent, and our desire to win us friends of the saints, better per-
formed. But both these deliveries, both by ourselves and others, tend
wholly to keep us out of the fire eternal, not to free us after we once be
in it. For such as interpret that place of Scripture, “Some fell in good
ground, and brought forth fruit, some thirty-fold, some sixty, some an
hundred ;” by the saints, according to the diversity of their merit, that
some should deliver thirty men, some sixty, some a hundred: neverthe-
less do suppose that this delivery shall be at the judgment, and not after
it. By which opinion one observing what occasion divers took to live
in all looseness and exorbitance, supposing that by this means all men
might be saved, is said to give this witty answer: “We ought for this
cause rather to live uprightly to increase the number of the intercessors,
lest otherwise there should be so few, that every one might save his
thirty, his sixty, or his hundred, and yet an infinite company might
_Temain unsaved :” of which, why might not he be one that comforted
himself in his rash hope of help from another? And thus much against
those who not contemning the authority of our Scriptures, do notwith-
standing wrest them to evil meanings, following their own fantasies,
and not the Holy Ghost’s true intention. But since we have given
them their answer, we must now (as we promised), give an end to this
present book.

THE TWENTY-SECOND BOOK OF THE
CITY OF GOD.

——:0: —

CHAPTER I.
Of the estate of angels and of men.

mag present book being the last of this whole work, shall contain

a discourse of the eternal beatitude of the City of God. Which
City is not called eternal, as if it should continue for the space of so
many, or so many thousand, ages, and then have an end, but as it is
written in the Gospel, ‘‘Of His kingdom there shall be no end.” Nor
shall this perpetuity preserve the form by succession, as a bay tree seems
to keep a continual verdure, though one leaf fall off and another spring
up: but every citizen therein shall be immortal, and man shall attain to
that which the angels have never foregone. This God, the Founder of
this City, will effect: for so He has promised, who cannot lie, and who
to confirm the rest has effected part of His promises already.

‘He it is that made the world, with all things sensible and intelligible
therein, whose chief work the spirits were, to whom He gave an under-
standing, making them capable of His contemplation, and combining
them in one holy and united society, which we call the City of God,
holy and heavenly, wherein God is their life, their nutriment, and their
beatitude. He gave a free election also unto those intellectual natures,
that if they would forsake Him, who was their bliss, they should pre-
sently be enthralled in misery. And foreknowing that certain of the
angels, proudly presuming that themselves were sufficient beatitude to
themselves, would forsake Him, and all good with Him, He did not
abridge them of His power, knowing it a more powerful thing to make
good use of such as were evil, than to exclude evil for altogether. Nor
had there been any evil at all, but that those spirits (though good, yet
mutable) which were formed by the omnipotent and unchangeable
Deity, procured such evil unto themselves by sin: which very sin,
proved that their natures were good in themselves. For if they had not

330 St Augustine.

been so (although inferior to the Maker) their apostasy had not fallen
so heavily upon them. For as blindness being a defect, proves plainly
that the eye was made to see, the excellency of the eye being hereby
made more apparent (for otherwise blindness were no defect), so those
natures enjoying God, proved themselves to be created good, in their
very fall, and that eternal misery that fell upon them for forsaking God,
who has given assurance of eternal perseverance unto those that stood
firm in Him, as a fit reward for their constancy. He also made man
upright, of a free election, earthly, yet worthy of heaven, if he stuck fast
to his Creator ; otherwise, to partake of such misery as was consonant to
a nature of that kind: and foreknowing likewise, that he would break the
law that He bound him to, and forsake his Maker, yet did He not take
away his freedom of election, foreseeing the good use that He would
make of this evil, by restoring man to His grace by means of a Man,
born of the condemned seed of mankind, and by gathering so many
unto this grace as should supply the places of the fallen angels, and so
preserve (and perhaps augment) the number of the heavenly inhabitants.
For evil men do much against the will of God, but yet His wisdom fore-
sees that all such actions as seem to oppose His will, do tend to such
ends as He foreknew to be good and just. And therefore, whereas God
is said “to change His will,” that is, to turn His meekness into anger,
against some persons, the change in this case is in the persons, and nct
in Him: and they find Him changed in their sufferances, as a sore eye
finds the sun sharp, and being cured, finds it comfortable, whereas this
change was in the eye and not in the sun, which keeps his office as he
did at first. For God’s operation in the hearts of the obedient, is said
to be His will, whereupon the apostle says, ‘It is God that worketh in
you both will and deed.” For even as that righteousness wherein both
God Himself is righteousness, and whereby also a man that is justi-
fied of God is such, is termed the righteousness of God; so also is that
law which He gives unto man, called His law, whereas it is rather per-
tinent unto man than unto Him. For those were men unto whom
Christ said, ‘It is written also in your law ;” though we read elsewhere,
* The law of his God is in his heart,” and according unto His will, which
God works in man, Himself is said to will it, because He works it in
others who do will it, as He is said to know that which He makes the
ignorant to know. For whereas St Peter says, “ We now knowing God,

before the foundations of the world, but God as then is said to know
that which He made known to others. Of this phrase of speech I have
spoken (I remember) heretofore. And according unto this will, whereby
we say that God wills that which He makes others to will, who know
not what is to come, He wills many things, and yet effects them not.

Of the City of God. 331

CHAPTER II.
Of the eternal and unchangeable will of God.

For the saints do will many things that are inspired with His holy will,
and yet are not done by Him, as when they pray for any one, it is not
He that causes this their prayer, though He do produce this w// ot
prayer in them, by His Holy Spirit. And therefore when the saints do
will, and pray according to God, we may well say that God wills it ane
yet works it not, as we say He wills that Himself, which He makes
others to will, But according to His eternal will, joined with His fore-
knowledge, thereby did He create all that He pleased, in heaven and in
earth, and hath wrought all things already, as well future as past or
present. But when the time of manifestation of anything which God
foreknows to come, is not yet come, we say, It shall be when God will:
and if both the time be uncertain, and the thing itself, then we say, It
shall be if God will: not that God shall have any other will as then,
than He had before, but because that shall be then effected, which His
eternal, unchanging will, had from all eternity ordained.

CHAPTER III.
The promise of the saints eternal bliss, and the wicked’s perpetual torment.

WHEREFORE (to omit many words) as we see in His promise to Abraham,
“In thy seed shall all nations be blessed,” fulfilled in Christ, so shall
that be fulfilled hereafter which was promised to the said seed by
the prophet, “The dead shall live, even with their bodies shall they
rise.” And, where He says, “I will create new heavens and a new
earth, and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind,
but be ye glad, and rejoice in the things I shall create; for behold I
will create Jerusalem as a rejoicing, and her people as a joy,” &c. And
by another prophet, “ At that time shall thy people be delivered, every-
one that shall be found written in the book of life, and many that sleep
in the dust of the earth, shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some
to shame and perpetual contempt.” And again, “They shall take the
kingdom of the saints of the Most High, and possess it for ever, even
for ever and ever.” And a little after, ‘‘His kingdom is an ever-
jasting kingdom,” &c. Together with all such places as I either put
into the twentieth book, or left untouched ; all these things shall come
to pass, and those have already which the infidels would never believe.
For the same God promised them both, even He whom the pagan gods
do tremble before, as Porphyry, a worthy philosopher of theirs, con-
fesses.

332 St Augustine.

CHAPTER IV.

Against the wise men of the world that hold tt impossible for man’s body
to be transported up to the dwellings of Joy in heaven.

Bur the learned of the world think that they oppose this all-convertinz
power very strongly, as touching the resurrection, when they use that
place of Cicero in his third book De Leepublicé, who having affirmed that
Romulus and Hercules were both deified, yet were not their bodies
(says he) translated into heaven, for nature will allow an earthly body no
place except on the earth. This is the wise man’s argument, which God
knows how vain it is: for admit that we were all mere spirits, without
bodies, dwelling in heaven, and being ignorant of all earthly creatures,
and it should be told us, that one day we should be bound in corporal
bodies, might we not then use this objection to more power, and refuse
to believe that nature would ever suffer an incorporeal substance to be
bound or circumscribed by a corporal one? Yet is the earth full of
vegetable souls, strangely combined with earthly bodies. Why then
cannot God that made this creature, transport an earthly body into
heaven, as well as He can bring a soul (a purer essence than any
celestial body) down from heaven, and inclose it in a form of earth.
Can this little piece of earth include so excellent a nature in it, and live
by it, and cannot heaven entertain it, nor keep it in it, seeing that it
lives by an essence more excellent than heaven itself? Indeed this shall
not come to pass as yet, because it is not His pleasure who made this
that we daily see and so respect not, in a far more admirable manner
than that shall be which those wise men believe not: for why is it not
more strange that a most pure and incorporeal soul should be chained to
an earthly body, than that an earthly body should be lifted up to heaven,
which is but a body itself ? Only because the first we see daily in our-
selves, and the second we have yet never seen. But reason will tell one
that it is a more divine work to join bodies and souls, than to join
bodies to bodies though never so different in natures, as if the one be
heavenly and the other of the earth.

CHAPTER V.

Of the resurrection of the body, believed by the whole world excepting some
few.

THIs was once incredible. But now we see the whole world believes
that Christ’s body is taken up to heaven. The resurrection of the
body, and the ascension unto bliss is believed now by all the earth ;
learned and unlearned embrace it, only some few reject it: if it be
credible, what fools are they not to believe it: if it be not, how in-

Of the City of God. 333

credible a thing is it, that it should be so generally believed! These
two incredible things, to wit, the resurrection, and the world’s belief
thereof, our Lord Jesus Christ promised should come to pass, before
that He had effected either of them. Now one of them (the world’s
belief of the resurrection) we see is come to pass already; why then
should we despair of the other, that this incredible thing which the
world believes, should come to pass as well as that other? Especially
seeing that they are both promised in those Scriptures, whereby the
world believed. The manner of which belief is more incredible than
the rest ; that men, ignorant in all arts, without rhetoric, logic, or gram-
mar, plain fishers, should be sent by Christ into the sea of this world,
only with the nets of faith, and draw such an innumerable multitude of
fishes of all sorts, so much the stranger, in that they took many rare
philosophers. So that this may well be accounted the third incredible
thing, and yet all three are come to pass. It is incredible that Christ
should rise again in the flesh, and carry it up to heaven with Him. It
is incredible that the world should believe this: and it is incredible that
this belief should be effected by a small sort of poor, simple, unlearned
men. The first of these our adversaries believe not; the second they
behold, and cannot tell how it is wrought, if it be not done by the third.
Christ’s resurrection and ascension is taught and believed all the world
over. If it be incredible, why does all the world believe it? If many
noble, learned, and mighty persons, or men of great sway, had said they
had seen it, and should have divulged it abroad, it had been no marvel
if the world had believed them, and unbelievers would have been
thought hardly of. But seeing that the world believes it from the
mouths of a few, mean, obscure, and ignorant men, why do not our
obstinate adversaries believe the whole world which believed those
simple, mean, and unlearned witnesses, because that the Deity itself in
these poor shapes did work the more effectually, and far more admir-
ably ? for their proofs and persuasions lay not in words, but wonders:
and such as had not seen Christ risen again, and ascending, believed
their affirmations thereof, because they confirmed them with miracles:
for whereas they spoke but one language, or (at the most) but two,
before, now of a sudden, they spoke all the tongues of all nations.
They cured a man that had been forty years lame, even from his mother’s
breasts, only by the very name of Jesus Christ. Their handkerchiefs
helped diseases ; the sick persons got themselves laid in the way where
they should pass, that they might have help from their very shadows,
and amongst all these miracles done by the name of Christ, they raised
some from the dead. If these things be true as they are written, then
may all these be added to the three former incredibles: thus do we
bring a multitude of incredible effects to persuade our adversaries but
unto the belief of one, namely, the resurrection; and yet their horrible

334 St Augustine.

obstinacy will not let them see the light: if they believe not that the
apostles wrought any such things for confirmation of the resurrection
of Christ, it is sufficient then that the whole world believed them without
miracles, which is a miracle as great as any of the rest.

CHAPTER VI.

That love made the Romans deify their founder Romulus, and faith made
the Church love her Lord and Master Christ Jesus.

Let us hear what Tully says of the fabulous deity of Romulus: “it is
more admirable in Romulus (says he) that the rest of the deified men
lived in the times of ignorance, where there was more scope for fiction,
and where the rude vulgar were far more credulous. But Romulus, we
see, lived, within this six hundred years, since which time (and before
also) learning has been more common, and the ignorance of elder times.
utterly abolished.” Thus says Tully: and a little after, « Hereby it is
evident, that Homer was long before Romulus, so that in the later times,
men grew learned, and fictions were well near wholly excluded, whereas
antiquity has given credence to some very unlikely fables: but our
modern ages being more polished, deride and reject all things that seem
impossible.” Thus says the most learned and eloquent man, that
Romulus’s divinity was the more admirable, because his times were
enlightened, and kept no place for fabulous assertions. But who believed
this deity, but Rome, as then a little thing (God knows) and a young?
Posterity indeed must needs preserve the traditions of antiquity, every-
one sucked superstition from his nurse, whilst the city grew to such
power, that seeming in sovereignty to stand above the nations under it,
she poured the belief of this deity of his throughout her conquered
provinces, that they should affirm Romulus to be a god (howsoever they
thought), lest they should scandalise the founder of their lady and mis-
tress, in saying otherwise of him than error of love (not love of
error) had induced her to believe. Now Christ likewise, though
He founded the Celestial City, yet does not she think Him a God
for founding of her, but she is rather founded for thinking Him to
be a God. Rome being already built and finished, adored her
founder in a temple: but the heavenly Jerusalem places Christ her
Founder in the foundation of her faith, that hereby she may be built and
perfected. Love made Rome believe that Romulus was a god: and
the belief that Christ is God, made His City to love Him. So that even
as Rome had an object for her love, which she was ready to honour
with a false belief: so the City of God has an object for her faith
which she is ever ready to honour with a true and rightly grounded
love. For as touching Christ, besides those many miracles, the holy

Of the City of God. 335

prophets also did teach Him to be God, long before His coming:
which as the Fathers believed should come to pass, so that we do now
see that they are come to pass. But as touching Romulus, we read
that he built Rome, and reigned in it, not that this was prophesied
before : but as for his deification, their books affirm that it was believed,
but they shew not how it was effected, for there were no miracles to
prove it. The she-wolf that fed the two brethren with her milk, which
is held so miraculous, what does this prove as concerning his deity? If
this she-wolf were not a courtesan but a brute beast, yet the accident
concerning both the brethren alike, why was not Remus deified for
company? And who is there that if he be forbidden upon pain of
death to say that Hercules, Romulus, or such are deities, had rather
lose his life than profess belief in it? What nation would worship
Romulus as a god, if it were not for fear of Rome? - But on the other
side, who is he that can number those that have suffered death willingly
in what form of cruelty soever, rather than deny the Deity of Christ?
A light and little fear of the Roman power compelled divers inferior
cities to honour Romulus as a god: but neither fear of power, torment,
nor death, could hinder an infinite multitude of martyrs, all the world
through, from both believing and professing that Christ was God. Nor did
His City, though she were as then a pilgrim upon earth, and had huge
multitudes within her, ever go about to defend her temporal estate
against her persecutors by force, but neglected that to gain her place in
eternity. Her people were bound, imprisoned, beaten, racked, burned,
torn, butchered, and yet multiplied. Their fight for life was the con-
tempt of life for their Saviour. Tully, in his third De Repudblicd (or I
am deceived) argues that a just city never should take arms, but either
for her safety or faith. What he means by safety he shews elsewhere.
From those pains (says he) which the most foolish may feel, as poverty,
banishment, stripes, imprisonment, or so, do private men escape, by the
ready despatch of death. But this death which seems to free private
men from pains, is pain itself unto a city. For the aim of a city’s con-
tinuance should be eternity. Death, therefore, is not so natural to a
commonwealth as to a private man; he may oftentimes be driven to
wish for it: but when a city is destroyed, the whole world seems (in a
manner) to perish with it. Thus says Tully, holding the world’s
eternity with the Platonists. So then he would have a city to take arms for
her safety, that is, for her continuance for ever here upon earth, although
her members perish and renew successively, as the leaves of the olive
and laurel trees, and such like as they are: for death (says he) may free
private men from misery, but it is misery itself unto a commonwealth.
And therefore it is a question whether the Saguntines did well in
choosing the destruction of their city, before the breach of faith with
the commonwealth of Rome; an act which all the world commends.

336 St Augustine.

But I cannot see how they could possibly keep this rule, that a city
should not take arms but either for her faith or safety. For when
these two are jointly endangered, that one cannot be saved without the
other’s loss, one cannot determine which should be chosen. If the
Saguntines had chosen to preserve their safety, they had broken their
faith; if their faith, then would they lose their safety, as indeed they
did. But the safety of the City of God is such, that it is preserved (or
rather purchased) by faith, and faith being once lost, the safety cannot
possibly but perish also. This thought, with a firm and patient resolu-
tion, crowned so many martyrs for Christ, when Romulus never had
so much as one man that would die in defence of his deity.

CHAPTER VII.

That the belief of Christ's Deity was wrought by Goa’s power, not man’s
persuasion.

But it is absurd to make any mention of the false deity of Romulus
when we speak of Christ. But if the age of Romulus, almost. six
hundred years before Scipio, were so stored with men of understanding
that no impossibility could enter their belief, how much more wise were
they six hundred years after in Tully’s time, in Tiberius’ time, and in
the days of Christ’s coming? So that His resurrection and ascension
would have been rejected as fictions and impossibilities, if either the
power of God or the multitude of miracles had not persuaded the con-
trary, teaching that it was now shewn in Christ, and hereafter to be
shewn in all men besides, and averring it strongly against all horrid
persecutions throughout the whole world, through which the blood of
the martyrs made it spread and flourish. They read the prophets, ob-
served a concordance, and a concurrence of all those miracles, the
truth confirmed the novelty, being not contrary to reason, so that at
the last the world embraced and professed that which before it had
hated and persecuted.

CHAPTER VIII.

Of the miracles which have been and are as yet wrought to procure and
confirm the world’s belief in Christ.

But how comes it, say they, that you have no such miracles nowadays,
as you say were done of yore? I might answer, that they were neces-
sary, before the world believed, to induce it to believe: and he that
seeks to be confirmed by wonders now, is to be wondered at most of
all himself ; in refusing to believe what all the world believes besides
him. But this they object implies that they believe not that there
were any miracles done at all, No? Why then is Christ’s ascension

Of the City of God. | 337

in the flesh so generally avowed? Why, does the world in such learned
and circumspect times, believe such incredible things, without seeing
them confirmed by miracles? were they credible, and therefore believed ?
Why then do not they themselves believe them? Our conclusion is
brief: either this incredible thing which was not seen, was confirmed
by other incredibles which were seen, or else this being so credible that
it need no miracle to prove it, condemns their own gross incredulity,
that will not believe it. This I say to silence fools: for we cannot deny
but that the miraculous ascension of Christ in the flesh was ratified unto
us by the power of many other miracles. The Scriptures do both relate
them, and the end whereunto they tended. They were written to work
faith in men, and the faith they wrought has made them far more
famous. They are read to induce the people to believe, and yet would
not be read unless they are believed: and for miracles, there are some
wrought as yet, partly by the sacraments, partly by the commemorations
and prayers of the saints, but they are not so famous, nor so glorious as
the other; for the Sériptures which were to be divulged in all places,
have given lustre to the first, in the knowledge of all nations, whereas the
latter are only known unto the cities where they are done, or some parts
about them. And generally, there are few that know them there, and
many that do not, if the city be great; and when they relate them to
others, they are not believed so fully, and so absolutely as the other,
although they be declared by one Christian to another. The miracle
that was done at Milan when I was there, might well become famous,
both because the city was of great largeness, and likewise for the great
concourse of people that came to the shrine of Protasius and of Gervase,
where the blind man obtained his sight. The bodies of these two
martyrs lay long unknown, until Ambrose, the bishop, had notice of
them, by a relation in a dream. But that at Carthage, whence Inno-
centius, one that had been an advocate of a neighbour state, received
his health, was unknown unto the most, whereas notwithstanding I was
present, and saw it with mine eyes, for he was the man that gave enter-
tainment unto me and my brother Alypius, not being priests as yet,
but only lay Christians, and we dwelt as then in his house: he lay
sick of many fistulae formed in the rectum: the surgeons had lanced
him, and put him to extreme and bitter pains, whereas notwithstanding
they had left one part untouched which they must perforce make
incision into ere they could possibly cure him: but they cured all the
rest, only that, being omitted, troubled them exceedingly, and made
all their applications tend to no purpose. Innocentius marking
their delays, and fearing another incision (which a physician that
dwelt in his house had told him they would be driven to make, whom
they would not suffer to see how they cut him, whereupon Innocentius
had angrily barred him his house, and could scarcely be brought
Y

338 St Augustine.

to receive him again), at last he burst forth, saying, “Will you cut
me again? will it come to his sayings, whom you will not have to
see your tricks?” But they mocked at the ignorance of the physician
and bade Innocentius be of good cheer, there was no such matter.
Well the time passed on, but no help of the malady could be seen: the
surgeons did still promise fair, that they would cure him by salve and
not by incision. Now they had got an old man and a cunning surgeon
called Ammonius to join with them, and he viewing the sore, affirmed
as much as they; which assurance of his did satisfy Innocentius that he
himself did now begin to gibe and jest at his other physician that said
he must be cut again. Well, to be brief, when they had spent some
weeks more, they all left him, shewing (to their shame) that he could
not possibly be cured but by incision. ‘This, and the excessive fear
thereof, struck him immediately beyond his senses, but recollecting
himself he bade them begone, and never more come at him, being en-
forced now by necessity to send for a cunning surgeon of Alexandria,
one that was held a rare artist to perform that which his anger would
not let the others do, The man coming to him, and (like a workman
observing the work of the others by the scars they had left) like a honest
man, advised him to let them finish the cure who had taken that great
pains with it, as he had with wonder observed, for true it was, that
incision was the only means to cure him, but that it was far from him
to deprive those of the honour of their industry whose pains in the cure
he saw had been so exceeding great. So the former surgeons were sent
for to perform it, and this Alexandrian must stand by, and see them
open the part which was otherwise held to be incurable. The business
was put off until the next day. But the surgeons being all departed,
the house was so filled with sorrow for the grief of their master, that it
shewed more like a preparation for a funeral than anything else, and
was very hardly suppressed. Now he was daily visited by divers holy
men, and namely by Saturninus (of blessed memory), the Bishop of
Uzali, and Gelosus, priest and deacon of the Church of Carthage, as
also by Bishop Aurelius, who only is yet living of all these three: a man
of worthy respect, and one with whom I now and then had conferred
about the wonderful works of God, I have often taken occasion to speak
of this, and found that he remembered it exceeding well. These men
visiting him towards the evening, he prayed them all to come again the
next day to be spectators of his death, rather than his pains, for his
former sufferings had so terrified him, that he made no question but
that he should immediately perish under the surgeon’s hands. They on
the other side bade him be comforted, trust in God, and bear His will
with patience. Then went we to prayers, and kneeling of us down, he
threw himself forcibly on his face, as if one had thrust him on, and so
began to pray, with such passion of mind, such floods of tears, such groans

Of the City of God. 339

and sobs (even almost to the stopping of his breath), that it is utterly
beyond words to express. Whether the rest prayed, or marked him, I
know not; for myself could not pray a jot, only I said in my heart, “Lord,
whose prayers wilt Thou hear, if Thou hear not his?” for methought
his prayer could not but procure his suit. Well we rose, and being
blessed by the bishop, we departed the room, he in the meantime
entreating them to come to him in the morning, and they strengthening
his spirit with as good consolations as they could give him. The feared
morning was now come, the holy men came according to their promises :
so did the surgeons. ‘The terrible irons were made ready, and all
things fit for such a work, whilst all the company sat silent in deep
_wonder. The chief and such as had more authority than the rest,
comforted him as well as they could, his body was laid fit for the hand
of him that was to cut him, the clothes untied, the place bared, the
surgeon views it with his knife in his hand ready to lance it, feeling
with his fingers where the ulcerous matter should lie. At length, having
made an absolute trial of all the part that was before affected, he found
the orifice firmly closed, and every place thereof as sound and as solid
as it was first created. Then joy and praises unto God (with tears of
comfort) were yielded on all sides beyond the power my pen has to
describe them. In the same town, one Innocentia, a devout woman,
and one of the chief in the city, had a cancer on her breast, a kind of
sore, which the surgeons told her is utterly incurable: wherefore they
ordinarily either cut the infected part away, or for the prolonging of the
life (as Hippocrates they say does advise) omit all attempt of curing it.
This a skilful physician (her familiar friend) told her, so that she now
sought help of none but the Lord, who told her in a dream, that at
Easter next (which then drew near) she should mark, on the women’s side
by the fount, what woman she was that (being then baptised) should
first meet her, and that she should entreat her to sign the sore with the
sign of the cross. She did it, and was cured. The former physician
that had wished her to abstain from all attempt of cure, seeing her
afterwards whole and sound whom he knew certainly to have had
that incurable ulcer before, earnestly desired to know how she was
cured, longing to find the medicine that had frustrated Hippocrates’
aphorism.

She told him: he presently with a voice (as if he had contemned it,
in so much that she feared exceedingly that he would have spoken
blasphemy) replied : “Why, I thought you would have told me some
strange thing,” she standing all amazed. “ Why, is it so strange,” quoth
he, “for Christ to heal a cancer, that could raise one to life that had
been four days dead?” When I first heard of this, it grieved me that
so great a miracle wrought upon so great a personage should be so sup-
pressed, whereupon I thought it good to give her a checking admoni-

340 St Augustine,

tion thereof, and meeting her and questioning the matter, she told me
she had not concealed it, so that I went and inquired of her fellow
matrons, who told me they never heard of it. Behold (said I to her,
before them) have you not concealed it, when your nearest familiars
do not know of it? Whereupon she fell to relate the whole order of it,
unto their great wonder, and the glorification of God. There was
also a physician, in the same town, much troubled with the gout, who
having given up his name to be baptised, the night before he should
receive this sacrament, in his sleep was forbidden it by a crew of curly-
headed negro boys, which he knew to be devils, but he Tefusing to
obey them, they stamped on his feet, so that they put him to most
extreme pain. Yet he keeping his firm resolve, and being baptised the
next day, was freed both from his pain and the cause thereof, so that
he never had the gout in all his days after. But who knew this man?
We did, and a few of our neighbour brethren, otherwise it had been
utterly unknown.

One of Curubis was by baptism freed both from the palsy and the
excessive hernia, so that he went from the font as sound a man as
ever was born. Where was this known but in Curubis, and unto a
few besides? But when I heard of it, I got Bishop Aurelius to send
him to Carthage, notwithstanding that it was first told me by men
of sufficient credit. Hesperius, one that has been a captain and
lives at this day by us, has a little farm called Zubedi, in the district
of Fussali, which he having observed (by the harm done to his servants
and cattle) to be haunted with evil spirits, he entreated one of our priests
(in mine absence) to go thither and expel them by prayer. One went,
prayed, and ministered the communion, and by God’s mercy the devil was
quit from the place ever after. Now he hada little of the earth wherein
the sepulchre of Christ stands, bestowed upon him by a friend, which
he had hung up in his chamber for the better avoidance of those wicked
- illusions from his own person.

Now they being expelled, he knew not what to do with this earth,
being not willing, for the reverence he bore it, to keep it any longer in
his lodging. So I and my fellow Maximus, Bishop of Synica, being at
the next town, he prayed us to come to his house. We did 3 he told us
all the matter, and requested that this earth might be buried some-
where, and made a place for prayer, and for the Christians to celebrate
God’s service in; and it was done accordingly,

Now there was a country youth that was troubled with the palsy,
who hearing of this, desired his parents to bring him thither. They did
so, where he prayed, and was presently cured. Victoriana is a town —
some thirty miles from Hipporegium. ‘There is a memorial of the two
martyrs of Milan, Gervase and Protasius, and thither they carried a
young man who, bathing himself in summer, at noonday, was possessed

Of the City of God. 341

with a devil. Being brought hither, he lay as one dead, or very near
death. Meanwhile the lady of the village (as custom is) entered the
place unto evening prayers, with her maids and certain votaresses, and
began to sing psalms, which sound made the man start up as in an
affright, and with a terrible raving he catched fast hold upon the altar,
whence he durst not once move, but held it as if he had been bound to
it. Then the devil within him began mournfully to cry for mercy, re-
lating how and when he entered the man, and lastly saying that he
would leave him, he named what parts of him he would spoil at his
departure, and saying these words, departed. But one of the man’s
eyes fell down upon his cheek, and hung only by a little string, all the
pupil of it (which is naturally black) becoming white, which the people
(whom his cries had called) seeing, they fell to help him with their
prayers: and though they rejoiced at the recovery of his wits, yet
sorrowed they for the loss of his eye, and advised him to get a surgeon
for it. But his sister’s husband, who brought him thither, replied,
saying, ‘“‘The God that delivered him from the devil, hath power to
restore him his eye ;” which said, he put it into the place as well as he
could, and bound it up with his napkin: wishing him not to loose it
until certain days were past, which doing, he found it as sound as ever
it was. At this place were many others helped, whom it were too long
to rehearse particularly.

I knew a virgin in Hippo, who was freed from the devil, only by
anointing with oil mixed with the tears of the priest that prayed for her.
I know a bishop who by prayer dispossessed the devil, being in a youth
that he never saw. There was one Florentius here of Hippo, a poor
and godly old man, who getting his living by mending of shoes, lost his
upper garment, and being not able to buy another, he came to the
shrine of the: Twenty Martyrs and prayed aloud unto them, to help him
to raiments. A sort of scoffing youths overheard him, and at his de-
parture, followed him with mocks, asking him if he had begged fifty
halfpence of the martyrs to buy him a coat withal. But he, going
quietly on, spied a great fish, new cast up by the sea, and yet panting,
which fish, by their permission that were by, he took, and carried it to
one Carchosus a cook, a good Christian, and sold it to him for three
hundred halfpence, intending to bestow this money upon wool for his
wife to spin, and make into a garment for him. ‘The cook cutting up
the fish found a ring of gold in his stomach, which amazing him, his con-
science made him send for the poor man, and give him the ring, saying
to him: Behold how the Twenty Martyrs have apparelled you. When
Bishop Projectus brought St Stephen’s relics to the town called Aque
Tibilitanz, there were a many people flocked together to honour them.
Amongst whom there was a blind woman, who prayed them to lead her
to the bishop that bore the holy relics. So the bishop gave her certain

342 St Augustine.

flowers which he had in his hand. She took them, put them to her eyes,
and presently had her sight restored, in so much that she passed speedily
on, before all the rest, as now not needing any more to be guided. So
Bishop Lucillus, bearing the relics of the said martyr, enshrined in the castle
of Synice, near to Hippo, was thereby absolutely cured of a fistula where-
with he had been long vexed, and was come to that pass that he every day
expected when the surgeon should lance it: but he was never troubled
with it after that day. Eucherius, a Spanish priest, that dwelt at Calame,
was cured of the stone by the same relics, which Bishop Posidius brought
thither, and being afterwards laid out for dead from another disease, by
the help of the said martyr (unto whose shrine they brought him) was
restored unto his former life and soundness.

There was one Martialis, a great man, of good years, but a great foe
to Christ, who dwelt in this place. This man’s daughter was a Christian,
and married unto a Christian. The father being very sick, was entreated
by them both with prayers and tears to become a Christian, but he utterly
and angrily refused. So the husband thought it good to go to St
Stephen’s shrine, and there to pray the Lord to send his father-in-law
into a better mind, and to embrace Christ Jesus without further delay.
For this he prayed with great zeal and affection, with showers of tears, and
storms of religious sighs, and then departing he took some of the flowers
from off the altar, and in the night laid them at his father’s head, who slept
well that night, and in the morning called in all haste for the bishop,
who was then at Hippo with me. ‘They told him therefore so: he forth-
with sends for the priests, and when they came told them presently that
he believed, and so was immediately baptised, to the amazement of them
all. This man all the time he lived after, had this saying continually in —

his mouth, “Lord Jesus receive my spirit” These were his last _
words, though he knew them not to be St Stephen’s, for he lived not —

long after. At this place also were two healed of the gout, a citizen —

and astranger. ‘The citizen knew by example what to do to be rid of his ;

pain, but the stranger had it revealed unto him.
There is a place called Andurus, where St Stephen has a part of
his body remaining also. A child being in the street, certain oxen that

drew a cart, growing unruly, left the way, and ran over the child with the |

wheel, so that it lay all crushed, and past all hope of life. ‘The mother 4

snatched it up and ran to the shrine with it, where laying it down, it —
recovered both life and full strength again in an instant, being absolutely

cured of all hurt whatsoever. Near this place, at Caspalia, dwelt a

votaress, who being sick and past recovery, sent her garment to the ©

shrine, but ere it came back she was dead, yet her parents covered her
with it, which done, she presently revived and was as sound as ever. ©

The like happened to one Bassus, a Syrian, that dwelt at Hippo. Pray-
ing for his sick daughter at St Stephen’s, and having her garment with

j
;

Of the City of God. 343

him, word came by a boy that she was dead. But as he was at prayer,
his friends met the boy (before he had been with him), and bade him
not to tell him there, lest he went mourning through the street. So he
coming home, and finding all in tears, he laid her garment upon her, and
she presently revived. So likewise Irenzeus’ son, a collector, being dead,
and ready to go out for burial, one advised to anoint him with some of
St Stephen’s oil. They did so, and he revived. Elusinus, likewise
a captain, seeing his son dead, took him and laid him upon the shrine
that is in his farm in our suburbs, where after he had prayed a while,
he found him revived. What shall I do? my promises bind me to be
brief, whereas doubtless many that shall read all these things, will grieve
that I have omitted so many that are known both to them and me.

But I entreat their pardon that they would consider how tedious a task
it is, so that my promised respect of brevity will not allow it. For if
I should but relate all the miracles done by the memorials of St
Stephen, only at Calama and Hippo, it would be a work of many
volumes, and yet not be perfect neither ; I could not relate all, but only
such as are recorded for the knowledge of the people, for that we desire,
when we see our times produce wonders like to those of yore, that they
should not be utterly in vain, by being lost in forgetfulness and
oblivion.

It is not yet two years since the shrine was built at Hippo, and
although we ourselves do know many miracles done there since, that
are recorded, yet are there almost seventy accounts written of those that
have been recorded since that time to this. But at Calama the shrine
is more ancient, the miracles more often, and the books far more in
number. At Uzali also, near Utica, have many miracles been wrought
by the power of the said martyr, where Bishop Evodius erected his
memorial, long before this of ours. But there they did not use to
record them, though it may be they have begun such a custom of late.
For when we were there, we advised Petronia (a noble woman who was
cured of an old disease which all the physicians had given over) to have
the order of her miraculous cure drawn in a book (as the bishop of that
place liked), and that it might be read unto the people; and she did
accordingly, wherein was one strange passage, which I cannot omit,
though my time will hardly allow me to relate it.

A certain Jew had advised her to take a ring, with a stone set in it
that is found in the reins of an ox, and sew it in a girdle of hair which
she must wear upon her skin, under all her other raiments. This girdle
she had on when she set forth to come to the martyr’s shrine, but having
left Carthage before, and dwelling at a house of her own by the river
Bagrada, as she rose to go on the rest of her journey, she spied the ring
lie at her feet. _Whereat wondering, she felt for her girdle, and finding
it tied, as she had bound it, she imagined that the ring was broken, and

344 St Augustine.

so worn out. But finding it whole, then she took this as a good presage
of her future recovery, and loosing her girdle, cast both it and the ring
into the river. Now they that will not believe that Jesus Christ was
born without interruption of the virginal parts, nor passed into His
apostles when the doors were shut, neither will they believe this. But
when they examine it, and find it true, then let them believe the other.
The woman is of noble birth, nobly married, and dwells at Carthage :
So great a city, So great a person in the city cannot lie unknown to any
that are inquisitive. And the martyr by whose prayer she was cured
believed in Him that was born of an eternal virgin, and entered to His
disciples when the doors were shut: and lastly (whereunto all this has
reference), who ascended into heaven in the flesh, wherein He rose
again from death: for which faith this martyr lost his life.

So that we see there are miracles at this day wrought by God, with
what means He likes best who wrought them of yore: but they are not
so famous, nor fastened in the memory by often reading, that they might
not be forgotten. For although we have gotten a good custom of late
of reading the relations of such as these miracles are wrought upon unto
the people, yet perhaps they are read but once, which they that are
present do hear, but no one else: nor do they that hear them keep
them long in remembrance, nor will any of them take the pains to
relate them to those that have not heard them. We had one miracle
wrought amongst us, so famous and so worthy, that I think not one of
Hippo but saw it or knows it, and not one that knows it that can ever
forget it.

There were seven brethren and three sisters (born all of one couple
in Czsarea, a city of Cappadocia), their parents were noble. Their
father being newly dead, and they giving their mother some cause
of anger, she laid an heavy curse upon them all, which was so seconded
by God’s judgment, that they were all taken with an horrible trembling
_of all their whole bodies: which ugly sight they themselves loathing
that their countrymen should behold, became vagrant through most
parts of the Roman Empire. Two of them, Paul and Palladia, came
to us, being notified by their miseries in many other places. They came
some fifteen days before Easter, and every day they visited St Stephen’s
shrine, humbly beseeching God at length to have mercy upon them
and to restore them their former health. Wheresoever they went they
drew the eyes of all men upon them, and some that knew how they
came so plagued told it unto others, that all might know it. Now was
Easter Day come, and many were come to Church in the morning
amongst whom this Paul was one, and had gotten him to the bars that
enclosed St Stephen’s relics, and there was praying, having hold of the
bars : presently he fell flat down, and lay as if he had slept, but trembled
not as he had used to do before ever in his sleep, ;

Of the City of God. 345

The people were all amazed, some feared, some pitied him, some would
have raised him, and other some say nay, let us see what will happen:
presently he started up, and rose as sound a man as ever he was born.
With that all the church resounded again with loud acclamations and
praises to God. And then they came flocking to me, who was about
to come forth to them, everyone telling me this strange and miraculous
event. I rejoiced, and thanked God within myself. Presently enters
the young man, and falls down at my knees. I took him up and kissed
him, so forth we went unto the people, who filled the church, and did
nothing but cry, “God be thanked, God be praised!” Every mouth
uttered this: I saluted them, and then the cry redoubled.

At length silence being made, the Scriptures were read, and when it
was sermon time I made only a brief exhortation to them, according
to the time and that present joy. For in so great a work of God, I did
leave them to think of it themselves, rather than to give ear to others.
The young man dined with us, and related the whole story of his mother
and brethren’s misery. The next day, after my sermon, I told the
people that to-morrow they should hear the whole order of this miracle
read unto them: which I doing, made the young man and his sister
stand both upon the steps that go up into the chancel (wherein I had
a place aloft, to speak from thence to the people) that the congregation
might see them both. So they all viewed them, the brother standing
sound and firm, and the sister trembling every joint of her. And they
that saw not him might know God’s mercy shewn to him by seeing his
sister, and discern both what to give thanks for in him, and what to
pray forin her. The relation being read, I willed them to depart out
of the people’s sight, and began to dispute of the cause of this, when as
suddenly there arose another acclamation from about the shrine. They
that hearkened unto me left me, and drew thither, for the maid when-
she departed from the steps, went thither to pray, and as soon as she
touched the gate she was so wrapt as he was, and so restored to
the perfect use of all her limbs. So while I was asking the reason
of this noise, the people brings her unto the choir to me, being now
as fully as sound as her brother. And then arose such an exultation,
that one would have thought it should never have end. And the maid
was brought thither where she had stood before. Then the people
rejoiced that she was like her brother now, who had lamented that she
was unlike him before, seeing that the will of the Almighty had fore-
stalled their intention of praying for her. This their joy was so loudly
expressed, that it was able to strike the strongest ear with stupor. And
what was in the hearts that rejoiced thus, but the faith of Christ,
for which St Stephen shed his blood?

346 St Augustine

CHAPTER IX.

That all the miracles done by the martyrs in the name of Christ, were
only confirmations of that faith, whereby the martyrs believed in Christ.

Anp what does all this multitude of miracles do, but confirm that faith
which holds that Christ rose again in the flesh, and so ascended into
heaven? For the martyrs were all only martyrs, that is, witnesses of this ;
and for this, they suffered the malice of the cruel world, which they
never resisted, but subdued by sufferance. For this faith they died,
obtaining this from Him for whom they died. For this, their patience
made the way for the power of these so powerful miracles to follow.
For if this resurrection had not been past, in Christ, or had not been to
come, as Christ promised, as well as those prophets that promised
Christ ; how comes it that the martyrs that died for this belief should
have the power to work such wonders? For whether God Himself
(who being eternal can effect things temporal by such wondrous means)
has wrought these things of Himself, or by His ministers, or by the
souls of the martyrs, as if He wrought by living men, or by His angels
over whom He has an invisible, unchangeable, and merely intellectual
command (so that those things which the martyrs are said to do, be
only wrought by their prayers, and not by their powers): be they
effected by this means, or by that; they do nevertheless in every
particular tend only to confirm that faith which professes the resurrec-
tion of the flesh unto all eternity. .

CHAPTER X. 4]

How much honour the martyrs deserve in obtaining miracles for the
worship of the true God, iu respect of the devils, whose works tend
all to make men think that they are gods. |

But it may be, here they will say, that their gods have also wrought _

wonders : very well, they must come now to compare their deities with

our dead men. Will they say, think you, that they have gods that have
been men, such as Romulus, Hercules, &c.? Well, but we make no_
gods of our martyrs ; the martyrs and we have both but one God, and
no more. But the miracles that the Pagans ascribe unto their idols.
are no way comparable to the wonders wrought by our martyrs. But
as Moses overthrew the enchanters of Pharaoh, so do our martyrs over-
throw their devils, who wrought those wonders out of their own pride,
only to gain the reputation of gods. But our martyrs (or rather God

Himself through their prayers) wrought unto another end, only to cond

firm that faith which excludes multitudes of gods, and believes but in one.

The Pagans built temples to those devils, ordaining priests and bar ani

for them, as for gods. But we build our martyrs no temples, but only
erect them monuments, as in memory of men departed, whose spirits”

Of the City of God. 347

are at rest in God. We erect no altars to sacrifice to them; we offer
only to Him who is both their God and ours, at which offering those
conquerors of the world as men of God, have each one his peculiar
commemoration, but no invocation at all. For the sacrifice is offered
unto God, though it be in memory of them; and he that offers it, is a
priest of the Lord, and not of theirs, and the offering is ‘the body of
the Lord,” which is not offered unto them, because they are that body
themselves. Whose miracles shall we then believe? Theirs that would
be accounted for gods by those to whom they shew them; or theirs
which tend all to confirm our belief in one God, which is Christ? Those
that would have their filthiest acts held sacred, or those that will not
have their very virtues held sacred in respect of their own glories, but
referred unto His glory, who has imparted such goodness unto them?
Let us believe them that do both work miracles, and teach the truth:
for this latter gave them power to perform the former. A chief point
of which truth is this, Christ rose again in the flesh, and shewed the
immortality of the resurrection in His own body, which He promised
unto us in the end of this world, or in the beginning of the next.

CHAPTER XI.

Against the Platonists that oppose the elevation of the body up to heaven,
by arguments of elementary ponderosity.

AGAINST this promise do many (‘whose thoughts God knoweth to be
vain”) make opposition out of the nature of elements: Plato (their
master) teaching them that the two most contrary bodies of the world
“are combined by other two means: that is, by air and water. Therefore
(say they) earth being lowest, water next, then air, and then the heaven,
earth cannot possibly be contained in heaven, every element having
its peculiar poise, and tending naturally to its proper place. See with
what vain, weak, and weightless arguments man’s infirmity opposes God’s
omnipotency ! Why then are there so many earthly bodies in the air,
air being the third element from earth? Cannot He that gave birds
(that are earthly bodies) feathers, of power to sustain them in the air,
give the like power to glorified and immortal bodies, to possess the
heaven? Again, if this reason of theirs were true, all that cannot fly,
would live under the earth, as fishes do in the water. Why then do
not the earthly creatures live in the water, which is the next element
unto earth, but in the air, which is the third? And seeing they belong
to the earth, why does the next element above the earth presently
choke them, and drown them, and the third feed and nourish them?
Are the elements out of order here now, or are their arguments out of
reason? JI will not stay here to make a rehearsal of what I spoke in
the thirteenth book, of many terrene substances of great weight, as lead,

348 St Augustine.

iron, &c., which notwithstanding may have such a form given it, that
it will swim, and support itself upon the water. And cannot God
Almighty give the body of man sucha form likewise that it may ascend,
and support itself in heaven? Let them stick to their method of ele-
ments (which is all their trust), yet can they not tell what to say to my
former assertion. For earth is the lowest element, and then water and
air successively, and heaven the fourth and highest, but the soul is a
fifth essence above them all. Aristotle calls it a fifth body, and Plato
Says it is utterly incorporeal. If it were the fifth in order, then were it
above the rest: but being incorporeal, it is much more above all sub-
stances corporeal. What does it then in a lump of earth, it being the
most subtle, and this the most gross essence? It being the most
active, and this the most unwieldy! Cannot the excellency of it have
power to lift up this? Hath the nature of the body power to draw down
a soul from heaven, and shall not the soul have power to carry the body
thither whence it came itself? And now if we should examine the miracles
which they parallel with those of our martyrs, we should find proofs.
against themselves out of their own relations.

One of their greatest ones is that which Varro reports of a vestal
votaress, who being suspected of whoredom, filled a sieve with the water
of the Tiber and carried it unto her judges, without spilling a drop
Who was it that kept the water in the sieve, so that not one drop passed
through those thousand holes? Some god, or some devil, they must
needs say. Well, if he were a god, is he greater than He that made
the world? If then an inferior god, angel, or devil had this power to
dispose thus of a heavy element, that the very nature of it seemed
altered ; cannot then the Almighty Maker of the whole world, take~
away the ponderosity of earth, and give the quickened body an ability
to dwell in the same place that the quickening spirit shall elect? And
whereas they place the air between the fire above, and the water be-
_ neath, how comes it that we oftentimes find it between water and water,
or between water and earth; for what will they make of those watery
clouds, between which and the sea, the air has an ordinary passage ?
What order of the elements does appoint, that those floods of rain
that fall upon the earth below the air, should first hang in the clouds
above the air? And why is air in the midst between the heaven and
the earth, if it were (as they say) to have the place between the
heavens and the waters, as water is between it and the earth? And
lastly, if the elements be so disposed as that the two means, air and
water, do combine the two extremes fire and earth, heaven being in the
highest place, and earth in the lowest, as the world’s foundation, and
therefore (say they) impossible to be in heaven ; what do we then with
fire here upon earth? for if this order of theirs be kept inviolate, then,
as earth cannot have any place in fire, no more should fire have any in

Of the City of God. 349

earth: as that which is lowest cannot remain aloft, no more should
that which is aloft remain below. But we see this order reversed;
we have fire both on the earth, and in the earth: the mountain tops
give it up in abundance, nay more, we see that fire is produced out
of earth, namely from wood, and stones, and what are these but
earthly bodies? Yea, but the elementary fire (say they) is pure, hurtless,
quiet, and eternal: and this of ours, turbulent, smoky, corrupting, and
corruptible. Yet doesit not corrupt nor hurt the hills wherein it burns
perpetually, nor the hollows within ground, where it works most
powerfully. It is not like the other indeed, but adapted unto the con-
venient use of man. But why then may we not believe that the nature
of a corruptible body may be made incorruptible, and fit for heaven, as
well as we see the elemental fire made corruptible, and fit for us? So
that these arguments drawn from the sight and qualities of the elements,
can no way diminish the power that Almighty God has, to make man’s
body of a quality fit and able to inhabit the heavens.

CHAPTER XII.
Against the infidels calumnies, cast out in scorn of the Christian’s belief of
the resurrection.

' Bur in their scrupulous inquiries, touching this point, they come
against us with such scoffs as these: Whether of the abortive births will
have any part in the resurrection? And seeing the Lord says, “‘ There
shall not one hair of your head perish,” whether shall all men be of one
stature and bigness or no? If they be, how shall the abortives (if they
rise again) have that at the resurrection which they wanted at the first ?
Or if they do not rise again because they were never born, but cast out,
we may make the same doubt of infants, where shall they have that big-
ness of body which they wanted when they died? for they you know are
capable of regeneration, and therefore must have their part in the resur-
rection. And then these Pagans ask us, of what height and quantity
shall men’s bodies be then? If they be as tall as ever was any man,
then both little and many great ones shall want that which they wanted
here on earth, and whence shall they have it? But if that be true which
St Paul says, ‘that we shall come to the measure of the age of the
fulness of Christ,” and again if that place, “ He predestinated [them] to
be made like to the image of His Son,” implying that all the members of
Christ’s kingdom shall be like Him in shape and stature, then must
many men (say they) forego part of the stature which they had upon
earth. And then where is that great protection of every hair, if there
be such a diminution made of the stature and body. Besides, we
make a question (say they) whether man shall arise with all the hair
that ever the barber cut from his head. If he does, who will not loath
such an ugly sight? for so likewise must it follow that he have on all

350 St Augustine.

the parings of his nails. And where is then the comeliness, which ought
in that immortality to be so far exceeding that of this world, while man
is in corruption? But if he does not rise with all his hair, then it is
lost, and where are your Scriptures then? Thus they proceed unto fat-
ness and leanness. If all be alike (say they) then one shall be fat and
another lean. So that some must lose flesh, and some must gain:
some must have what they wanted and some must leave what they had.
Besides, as touching the putrefaction and dissolution of men’s bodies,
part going into dust, part into air, part into fire, part into the entrails of
beasts and birds; part are drowned and dissolved into water, these
accidents trouble them much, and make them think that such bodies
can never gather to flesh again. Then pass they to deformities, as
monstrous births, misshapen members, scars and such like; inquiring
with scoffs what forms these shall have in the resurrection. For if we
say they shall be all taken away, then they come upon us with our
doctrine that Christ arose with His wounds upon Him still. But their
most difficult question of all is, whose flesh shall that man’s be in the
resurrection, which is eaten by another man through compulsion of
hunger? for it is turned into his flesh that eats it, and fills the parts that
famine had made hollow and lean.

Whether therefore shall he have it again that owned it at first, or he
that eats it and so owned it afterwards? These doubts are put unto
our resolutions by the scorners of our faith in the resurrection, and they
themselves do either estate men’s souls for ever in a state never certain,
but now wretched, and now blessed (as Plato does), or else with
Porphyry they affirm that these resolutions do toss the soul a long time,
but notwithstanding have a final end at last, leaving the spirit at rest, but
being utterly separated from the body for ever.

CHAPTER XIII.
Whether abortions belong not to the resurrection, if they belong to the dead.

To all which objections of theirs, I mean by God’s help to answer. And
first, as touching abortions, which die after they are quick in the
mother’s womb, that such shall rise again, I dare neither affirm nor
deny. Yet if they be reckoned amongst the dead, I see no reason to
exclude them from the resurrection. For either all the dead shall not
rise again, and the souls that had no bodies, saving in the mother’s
womb, shall continue bodiless for ever: or else all souls shall have their
bodies again, and consequently they whose bodies perished before the
time of perfection. Whichsoever of these two be received for truth,
that which we will now presently affirm confirm concerning infants is

to be understood of abortions also, it they have any part in the
resurrection.

Of the City of God. 351

CHAPTER XIV.
Whether infants shall rise again in the stature that they died in.

Now as touching infants, I say they shall not rise again with that little-
ness of body in which they died : the sudden and strange power of God
shall give them a stature of full growth. For our Saviour’s words,
* There shall not one hair of our heads perish,” do only promise them
all that they had before, not excluding an addition of what they had not
before. The infant wanted the perfection of his body's quantity (as
every perfect infant wants), that is, it was not come to the full height
and bigness, which all are born to have, and have at their birth, poten-
tially (not actually) as all the members of man are potentially i in the
generative seed, though the child may want some of them (as namely
the teeth) when it is born. In which ability of substance, that which
is not apparent until afterwards, lies (as one would say) wound up
before, from the first original of the said substance. And in this ability,
or possibility, the infant may be said to be tall, or low already, because
he shall prove such hereafter. Which may secure us from all loss of
body or part of body in the resurrection: for if we should be made all
alike, never so tall, or giant like, yet such as were reduced from a taller
stature unto that, should lose no part of their body: for Christ has said,
‘they should not lose an hair.” And as for the means of addition, how
can that wondrous workman of the world want fit substance to add
where He thinks good?
-CHAPTER XV.

Whether all of the resurrection shall be of the stature of Christ.
But Christ Himself arose in the same stature wherein He died: nor
may we say that at the resurrection He shall put on any other height or
quantity, than that wherein He appeared unto His disciples after He
was risen again, or become as tall as any man ever was. Now if we
say that all shall be made equal unto His stature, then must many that
were taller, lose part of their bodies against the express words of
Christ. Every one therefore shall arise in that stature which he either
had at his full man’s state, or should have had, if he had not died
before. As for St Paul’s words of the measure of the fulness of
Christ, they either imply that all His members as then being joined
with Him their head, should make up the time’s consummation, or if they
tend to the resurrection, the meaning is that all should arise neither
younger nor older, but just of that age whereat Christ Himself suffered
and rose again. For the learned authors of this world say that about
thirty years man is in his full state, and from that time he declines to
an age of more gravity and decay: wherefore the apostles says not,
“ Unto the measure of the body,” nor “ Unto the measure of the stature,”
but, “ Unto the measure of the age of the fulness of Christ.”

352 St Augustine.

CHAPTER XVI.

What is meant by the conformation of the saints unto the image of the
: Son of God.

AND whereas he says that the predestinate shall be made like to the
image of the Son of God, this may be understood of the inward man ;
for he says elsewhere, ‘“‘ Fashion not yourselves like unto this world,
but be ye changed by the renewing of your mind.” So then, when we
are changed from being like the world, we are made like unto the
image of the Son of God. . Besides, we may take it thus, that as He was
made like us in mortality, so we should be made like him in immortality,
and thus it is pertinent to the resurrection. But if that it concern the
form of our rising again, then it speaks (as the other place does) only
of the age of our bodies, not of their quantities. Wherefore all men
shall arise in the stature that they either were of, or would have been
of in their fulness of man’s state: although indeed it is no matter what
bodies they have, of old men or of infants, the soul and body being
both absolute and without all infirmity. So that if any one say that
every man shall rise again in the same stature wherein he died, it is not
an opinion that requires much opposition.

CHAPTER XVII.
Whether women will retain their proper sex in the resurrection.

THERE are some, who out of these words of St Paul, “Till we all
meet together in the unity of faith and knowledge of the Son of God,
unto a perfect man and unto the measure of the age of the fulness of
. Jesus Christ,” would prove that no woman shall retain her sex in the
resurrection, but all shall become men: for God (say they) made man
only of earth, and woman of man ; but I am rather of their mind that
hold a resurrection in both sexes, for there shall be none of that lust,
which caused man’s confusion, for as our first parents before their fall,
were both naked, and were not ashamed, so at the latter day, the sin
shall be taken away, and yet nature still preserved. The sex in woman
is no corruption, it is natural, and it then shall be free both from child-
virth, nor shall the female parts be any more powerful to stir up the
lusts of the beholders (for all lust shall then be extinguished), but praise
and glory shall be given to God for creating what was not, and for
freeing that from corruption which He had created. For, in the be-
ginning when a rib was taken from Adam, being asleep, to make Eve,
this was a plain prophecy of Christ and the Church. Adam’s sleep
was Christ’s death, from whose side being opened with a spear as He

Of the City of God. 353

hung upon the cross, came blood and water, the two sacraments whereby
the Church is built up. For the word of the text is not formavi?, nor
jinxit, but Aidificavit eam in mulierem, he built her up into a woman.
So the Apostle calls the Church, “the edification of the body of Christ.”
The woman therefore was God’s creature as well as man : but made from
man, for unity’s sake, and in the manner thereof was a plain figure of
Christ and His Church. He therefore that made both sexes will raise
them both to life. And Jesus Himself, being questioned by the
Sadducees, that deny the resurrection, which of the seven brethren should
have her to wife at the resurrection whom they had all had before,
answered them saying, “ Ye are deceived, not knowing the Scriptures
nor the power of God.” And where He might have said (if it had
been so) she whom you inquire of shall be a man at that day, and not
a woman; he said no such matter, but only this, “In the resurrection
they neither marry wives, nor wives are bestowed in marriage, but are
as the angels of God in heaven.” That is, they are like them in
felicity, not in flesh: nor in their resurrection, which the angels need
not, because they cannot die. So that Christ dose not deny that there
shall be women at the resurrection, but only marriage: whereas if
there had been none of the female sex, He might have answered the
Sadducees more easily by saying so: but He affirmed that there should
be both sexes, in these words: “They neither marry wives,” that is,
men do not marry ; “ nor wives are bestowed in marrige,” that is, women
are not married, so that there shall be there both such as ordinarily marry
and such as sre ordinarily married here in this world.

CHAPTER XVIII.
Of Christ, the perfect Man, and the Church, His body, and fulness.

Now touching Saint Paul’s words, “ Till we all meet together, &c., unto
a perfect man,” were to observe the circumstances of the whole speech,
which is this, ‘‘ He that descended, is even the same that ascended far
above all heavens that He might fill all things. He therefore gave
some to be apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and
some pastors and teachers, for the gathering together of the saints, and
for the work of their ministry and for the edification of the body of
Christ, till we all meet together in tne unity of faith and knowledge of
the Son of God, unto a perfect man and unto the measure of the age of
the fulness of Christ that we may henceforth be no more children,
wavering and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the deceit
of men, and with craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive, ‘‘ but
let us follow the truth in love, and in all things grow up into Him,
which is the Head, that is, Christ, by whom all the body being
coupled and knit together by every joint, for the furniture thereof,

Il. Z

354 St Augustine,

according to the effectual power which is in the measure of every part,
receiveth increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.”
Behold here the perfect man, head and body, consisting of all members ;
which shall be complete in due time. But as yet the body increases
daily in members, as the Church enlarges, to which it is said, “Ye are —
the body of Christ, and members one of another:” and again ; “ for His
body’s sake, which is the Church :” and in another place: “ For we
being many, are one bread, and one body.” Of the edification whereof
you hear what St Paul says here : “For the gathering together of the
saints, and for the work of the ministry, and for the edification of the
body of Christ.” And then he adds that which all this concerns:
“Till we all meet together,” &c., unto the measure of the age of the
fulness of Christ,” which measure, unto what body it pertains, he
shews, saying, “ Let us in all things grow up into Him which is the
Head, that is Christ, by whom all the body,” &c.

So that both the measure of the whole body, and of each part
therein, is this measure of fulness whereof the apostle speaks here, and _
also elsewhere, saying of Christ, “He hath given Him to be the Head
over all the Church, which is His body, the fulness of Him, who filleth all
in all.” But if this belong to the form of the resurrection, why may we
not imagine woman to be included by man, as in that place, “ Blessed
is the man that feareth the Lord,” which giveth the same blessing also to
such women as fear Him ?

CHAPTER XIX.

That our bodies in the resurrection shall have no imperfection at ail,
whatsoever they have had during this life, but shall be perfect both in
quantity and quality.

Now what shall I say concerning man’s hair, and nails ? understand but
that then no part of the body shall perish, yet so that no deformity shall
abide, and it includes, that such parts as do procure those deformities
shall be resident only in the whole lump, not upon any part where they
may offend the eye. As for example, make a pot of clay; mar it, and
make it again: it is not necessary that the clay which was in the handle
before should be in the handle now again, and so of the bottom and
the parts: suffice that it is the same clay it was before.

Wherefore the cut hair and nails shall not return to deform their
places, yet shall they not perish (if they return), but have their con-
gruent places in the same flesh from whence they had their being.
Although that our Saviour’s words may rather be understood of the
number of ‘our hairs, than the length, whereupon He says elsewhere
“ All the hairs of your head are numbered.” I say not this to imply
that any essential part of the body shall perish, but that which arises

Of the City of God. 355

out of deformity, and shews the wretched state of mortality, shall so
return that the substance shall be there, and the deformity gone. For
if an image maker having for some purpose made a deformed statue, can ©
mould, or cast it new and comely, with the same substance of matter,
and yet without all the former mis-shapedness ; neither cutting away any
of the exorbitant parts that deformed the whole, nor using any other
means but only the new casting of his metal, or moulding of his matter ;
what shall we think of the Almighty Moulder of the whole world? -
Cannot He then take away men’s deformities of body, common or ex-
traordinary (being only notes of our present misery, and far excluded
from our future bliss), as well as a common statuary can re-form a mis-
shapen statue of stone, wood, clay, or metal? Wherefore the fat, or
the lean need never fear to be such hereafter, as if they could choose,
they would not be now.

For all bodily beauty is a good congruence in the members, joined
with a pleasing colour. And where that is not, there is evermore dis-
like, either by reason of superfluity, or defect. Wherefore there shall
be no cause of dislike through incongruence of parts, where the de-
formed ones are reformed, the defects supplied, and the excesses fitly
proportioned. And for colour, how glorious will it be! ‘The just
shall shine as the sun in the kingdom of their Father,” and this lustre
was rather hidden from the apostles’ eyes at Christ’s resurrection, than
wanting in His body, for man’s weak eyes could not have endured it, and
Christ’s object was rather to make them to know Him than to shew them
His glory, as He manifested by letting them touch His wounds, by eat-
ing, and drinking with them, which He did not for any need of meat or
sustenance, but because He had power to do it. And when a thing is
present thus, and not seen, with other things that are present and seen
(as this glory was, unseen, being with His person, which was seen), this
in Greek, is called dopacia, the Latins translate it in Genesis, cecitas,
blindness. The Sodomites were smitten with it, when they sought Lot’s
door, and could not find it, but if it had been direct blindness, they
would rather have sought for guides to lead them home, than for this
door which they could not find.

CHAPTER XX.

That every man’s body, however dispersed here, shall be restored him, per-
Sect, at the resurrection.

Our love unto the martyrs is of that nature that we desire to behold the
scars of their wounds (borne for the name of Christ) even in their glori-
fication, and perhaps so we shall. For they will not deform, but grace
them as then, and give out a lustre of their virtue, not bodily, albeit in

356 St Augustine.

the body. But if any of them lost any member for his Saviour, surely
he shall not want that in the resurrection, for unto such was it said,
“ not an hair of your heads shall perish.”

But if Christ’s pleasure be to make their scars apparent in the world
to come, then shall those members also that were cut off have visible
marks in the place whence they were cut, and where they are rejoined,
for although all their miserable hurts shall not be there visible, yet there
shall be some, which nevertheless shall be no more called hurts, but
honours. And far be it from us to think God’s power insufficient to
re-collect and unite every atom of the body, were it burnt, or torn by
beasts, or fallen to dust, or dissolved into moisture, or exhaled into air.
God forbid that any corner of nature (though it may be unknown to us)
should lie hid from the eye and power of the Almighty. Tully (their
great author) going about to define God, as well as he could, affirmed
Him to be. “Mens soluta et libera, secreta ab omni concretione mor-
tali, omnia sentiens et movens ipsaque motu predita sempiterno. ‘A
free and unbounded intellect, separate from all mortal composition,
moving and knowing all things and moving eternally in Himself.’ This
he found in the great philosophers. Now then to come up to them,
what can lie hid from Him that knows all? what can avoid His power
that moves all? And now may we answer the doubt that seems most
difficult: that is, whose flesh shall that man’s be at the resurrection,
which another man eats? Ancient stories, and late experience have
lamentably informed us, that this has often come to pass that one man
has eaten another: in which case none will say that all the flesh went
quite through the body, and none was turned into nutriment: the
meagre places becoming by this only meat, more full and fleshy do
prove the contrary. Now then my premises shall serve to resolve this
. ambiguity.

The flesh of the famished man that hunger consumed, is exhaled into
air, and thence (as we said before) the Creator can fetch it again. This
flesh therefore of the man that was eaten, shall return to the first owner,
of whom the famished man does but as it were borrow it, and so must
repay it again. And that of his own which famine dried up into air,
shall be re-collected, and restored into some convenient place of his
body, which were it so consumed that no part thereof remained in
nature, yet God could fetch it again at an instant, and when He would
Himself. But seeing that the very hairs of our head are secured us,
it were absurd to imagine that famine should have the power to deprive
us of so much of our flesh.

These things being duly considered, this is the sum of all, that in the
resurrection every man shall arise with the same body that he had, or
would have had in his fullest growth, in all comeliness, and without
deformity of any the least member. To preserve with comeliness, it

Of the City of God. a7"

somewhat be taken from any unshapely part, and decently disposed of
amongst the rest (that it be not lost, and withal, that the congruence be
observed) we may without absurdity believe that there may be some
addition unto the stature of the body; the inconvenience that was
visible in one part, being invisibly distributed (and so annihilated)
amongst the rest. If any one avow precisely that every man shall arise
in the proper stature of his growth which he had when he died, we do
not oppose it, so that he grant us an utter abolishing of all deformity,
dulness, and corruptibility of the said form and stature, as things that
befit not that kingdom, wherein the sons of promise shall be equal to
the angels of God, if not in their bodies, nor ages, yet in absolute per-
fection and beatitude.

CHAPTER XXI.
What new and spiritual bodies shall be given unto the saints.

Every part therefore of the bodies, perishing either in death, or after
it, in the grave, or wheresoever, shall be restored, renewed, and of a
natural and corruptible body, it shall become immortal, spiritual, and
incorruptible. Be it all made into powder and dust, by chance, or
cruelty, or dissolved into air or water, so that no part remain undis-
persed, yet shall it not, yet can it not, be kept hidden from the omnipo-
tency of the Creator, who will not have one hair of the head to perish.
Thus shall the spiritual flesh become subject to the spirit, yet shall it be
flesh still, as the carnal spirit before was subject to the flesh, and yet a
spirit still.

A proof of which we have in the deformity of our penal estate. For
they were carnal in respect of the spirit indeed (not merely of the flesh)
to whom Saint Paul said, “I could not speak unto you as unto spiritual
men, but as unto carnal.” So man in this life is called “ spiritual,” though
he be “carnal” still, and have a law in his members, rebelling against the
law of his mind. But he shall be spiritual in body, when he rises
again, “So that it is sown a natural body, but raised a spiritual body,”
as the said Apostle says. But of the measure of this spiritual grace,
what and how great it shall be in the body, I fear to determine: for it
were rashness to go about it.

But seeing we may not conceal the joy of our hope for the glorifying
of God, and seeing that it was said from the very bowels of divine
rapture, “ Lord, I have loved the habitation of Thine house!” we may -
by God’s help make a conjecture from the goods imparted to us in this
transitory life, how great the glories shall be that we shall receive in the
other, which as yet we neither have tried, nor can any way truly describe.
I omit man’s estate before his fall; our first parents’ happiness in the
fertile Paradise, which was so short, that their offspring had no taste of

358 St Augustine.

it. Who is he that can express the boundless mercies of God shewn
unto mankind, even in this life that we all try, and wherein we suffer
temptations, or rather a continual temptation (be we never so vigilant)
all the time that we enjoy it?

CHAPTER XXII.

Of man’s miseries, drawn upon him by his first parents, and taken away
Srom him only by Christ's merits and gracious goodness.

CoNCERNING man’s first origin, our present life (if such a miserable
estate can be called a life) does sufficiently prove that all his children
were condemned in him. What else does that horrid gulf of ignorance
confirm, whence all error has birth, and wherein all the sons of Adam
are so deeply drenched, that none can be freed without toil, fear and
sorrow ? what else does our love of vanities affirm, whence there arises
such a tempest of cares, sorrows, repinings, fears, mad exultations, dis-
cords, altercations, wars, treasons, furies, hates, deceits, flatteries, thefts,
rapines, perjuries, pride, ambition, envy, murder, parricide, cruelty,
villany, luxury, impudence, unchastity, fornications, adulteries, incests,
several sorts of sins against nature (filthy even to be named), sacri-
lege, heresy, blasphemy, oppression, calumnies, circumventions, cozen-
ages, false witnesses, false judgments, violence, robberies, and such like,
out of my remembrance to reckon, but not excluded from the life of
man? All these evils are belonging to man, and arise out of the root
of that error and perverse affection which every son of Adam brings
into the world with him. For who does not know in what a mist of
ignorance (as we see in infants) and with what a crew of vain desires
(as we see in boys) all mankind enters this world? so that might he be
left unto his own election, he would fall into most of the foresaid
~ mischiefs,

But the hand of God bearing a rein upon our condemned souls, and
pouring out His mercies upon us (not shutting them up in displeasure),
law, and instruction were revealed unto the capacity of man, to awake
us out of those lethargies of ignorance, and to withstand those former
incursions, which notwithstanding is not done without great toil and
trouble. For what imply those fears whereby we keep little children in
order? what do teachers, rods, the strap, thongs, and such like, but con-
firm this? And that discipline of the Scriptures that says that our sons
must be beaten on the sides while they are children, lest they wax
stubborn, and either past, or very near past reformation? What is the
end of all these, but to abolish ignorance, and to bridle corruption both
which we come wrapped into the world withal? what is our labour to
remember things, our labour to learn, and our ignorance without this
labour ; our agility got by toil, and our dulness if we neglect it? does

Of the City of God. 359

is not all declare the promptness of our nature (in itself) unto all vicious-
ness, and the care that must be had in reclaiming it? Sloth, dulness,
and negligence, are all vices that avoid labour, and yet labour itself is
but a profitable pain.

But to omit the pains that enforce children to learn the (scarcely use-
ful) books that please their parents, how huge a band of pains attend the
firmer state of man, and be not peculiarly inflicted on the wicked, but
generally impendent over us all, through our common estate in misery?
who can recount them, who can conceive them? What fears, what
calamities does the loss of children, of goods or of credit, the false deal-
ing of others, false suspicion, open violence, and all other mischiefs
inflicted by others, heap upon the heart of man? being generally ac-
companied with poverty, imprisonment, bands, banishments, tortures,
loss of limbs or senses, prostitution to beastly lust, and other such
horrid events? So are we afflicted on the other side with chances ad
externo, with cold, heat, storms, showers, deluges, lightning, thunder,
earthquakes, falls of houses, fury of beasts, poisons of airs, waters, plants,
and beasts of a thousand sorts, stinging of serpents, biting of mad dogs,
a strange accident, wherein a beast most sociable and familiar with man,
shall sometimes become more to be feared than a lion or a dragon, in-
fecting him whom he bites, with such a furious madness, that he is to
be feared by his family worse than any wild beast? what misery do
navigators now and then endure? or travellers by land? what man can
walk anywhere free from sudden accidents? One coming home from
the court (being sound enough on his feet) fell down, broke his leg, and
died of it ; who would have thought this that had seen him sitting in the
court? Eli the priest fell from his chair where he sat, and broke his
neck. What fears are husbandmen, yea all men subject unto, that the
fruits should be hurt by the heavens, or earth, or caterpillars, or locusts
or such other pernicious things! yet when they have gathered them and
laid them up, they are secured : notwithstanding I have known granaries
full of corn borne quite away with an inundation.

Who can be secured by his own innocency against the innumerable
incursions of the devils, when we see that they do sometimes afflict
little baptised infants (who are as innocent as can be) and (by the per-
mission of God) even upon their harmless bodies, do shew the miseries
of this life, and excite us all to labour for the bliss of the other? Be-
sides, man’s body we see how subject it is to diseases, more than physic
can either cure or comprehend. And in most of these, we see how
offensive the very medicines are that cure them, nay even our very meat
we eat, during the time of the malady’s domination. Has not extremity
of heat made man to drink his own urine, and others’ too? Has not
hunger enforced man to eat man, and to kill one another to make meat
of ; yea even the mother to massacre and devour her own child? Nay is

360 St Augustine,

not our very sleep (which we term rest) sometimes so fraught with dis-
quiet, that it disturbs the soul, and all her powers at once, by the appear-
ance of such horrid terrors to the phantasy, and with such an expres-
sion, that she cannot discern them from true terrors? This is ordinary in
some diseases : besides the deceitful fiends sometimes will so delude the
eye of a sound man with such apparitions, that although they make no
farther impression into him, yet they persuade the sense that they are
truly so as they seem, and the devil’s desire is ever to deceive. . From
all these miserable engagements (representing a kind of direct hell)
we are freed only by the grace of Jesus Christ. For this is His name;
Jesus is a Saviour, and He it is that will save us from a worse life, or
rather a perpetual death, after this life: for aithough we have many and
great comforts by the saints in this life, yet the benefits hereof are not
given at every one’s request, lest we should apply our faith unto those
transitory respects, whereas it rather concerns the purchase of a life
which shall be absolutely free from all inconvenience. And the more ~
faithful that one is in this life, the greater confirmation has he from
grace, to endure those miseries without fainting, whereunto the Paynim
authors refer their true philosophy ; which their gods, as Tully says, re-
vealed unto some few of them. “There was never,” says he, “nor
could there be a greater gift given unto man, than this.” Thus our
adversaries are fain to confess that true philosophy is a divine gift :
which being (as they confess) the only help against our human miseries,
and coming from above, hence then it appears that all mankind was
condemned to suffer miseries. But as they confess that this help was
the greatest gift that God ever gave, so do we avow and believe, that it
was given by no other God but He to whom even the worshippers of
many gods give the pre-eminence.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Of accidents, severed from the common estate of man, and peculiar only to
' the just and righteous.

BEsIDEs those calamities that lie generally upon all, the righteous have
a peculiar labour, to resist vice, and be continually in combat with dan-
gerous temptations. The flesh is sometimes furious, sometimes remiss,
but always rebellious against the spirit, and the spirit has the same sorts
of conflict against the flesh : so that we cannot do as we would, or expel
all concupiscence, but we strive (by the help of God) to suppress it by
not consenting, and to curb it as well as we can, by a continual vigil-
ance: lest we should be deceived by likelihoods or subtleties, or in-
volved in errors, lest we should take good for evil and evil for good, lest
fear should hold us from what we should do, and desire entice us to do

Of the City of God. 361

what we should not : lest the sun should set upon our anger : lest enmity
should make us return mischief for mischief; lest ingratitude should
make us forget our benefactors ; lest evil reports should molest our
good conscience; lest our rash suspicion of others should deceive us, or
others’ false suspicion of us, deject us: lest sin should bring our bodies
to obey it: lest our members should be given up as weapons to sin:
lest our eye should follow our appetite ; lest desire of revenge should
draw us to inconvenience: lest our sight or our thought should stay too
long upon a sinful delight: lest we should give willing ear to evil
and indecent talk: lest our lust should become*our law; and lest that
we ourselves in this dangerous conflict should either hope to win the
victory by our own strength, or having gotten it, should give the glory
to ourselves, and not to His grace of whom St Paul says: “ Thanks be
unto God, who hath given us the victory through our Lord Jesus
Christ :” and elsewhere: “In all these things we are more than
conquerors through Him that loved us.”

But yet we are to know this, that stand we never so strong against sin,
or subdue it never so much: yet as long as we are mortal, we have cause
every day to say: ‘‘ Forgive us our trespasses” But when we ascend
into that kingdom where immortality dwells, we shall neither have wars
wherein to fight, nor trespasses to pray for, nor had not had any here
below, if our natures had kept the gifts of their first creation. And
therefore these conflicts, wherein we are endangered, and whence we
desire (by a final victory) freedom, are part of those miseries wherewith
the life of man is continually molested.

CHAPTER XXIV.
Of the good things that God has bestowed upon this miserable life of ours.

Now let us see what good things the great Creator has bestowed in His
mercy upon this life of ours made miserable by His justice. The first
was that blessing before our parents’ fall, ‘‘ Increase and multiply, fill the
earth,” &c. And this He revoked not, for all that they sinned, but left the
gift of fruitfulness to their condemned offspring : nor could their crime
abolish that power of the seed-producing seed inherent, and as it were
woven up in the bodies of man and woman: unto which nevertheless
death was annexed, so that in one and the same current (as it were) of
mankind, ran both the evil merited by the parent, and the good, be-
stowed by the Creator. In which original evil, lies sin, and punish-
ment: and in which original good, lies propagation, and conformation
or information. But of those evils, the one whereof (sin) came from our
own audaciousness, and the other (punishment) from the judgment of
God, we have said sufficient already.

362 St Augustine.

This place is fo. the goods which God has given, and still gives
to the condemned state of man, in which condemnation of his, God
took not all from him that He had given him (for so he would have
ceased to have had any being), nor did He resign His power over him,
when He gave him thrall to the devil, for the devil himself is his
thrall, He is cause of his subsistence, He that is only and absolutely
essential, and gives all things essence under Him, gave the devil his
being also. :

Of these two good things therefore which we said that His Almighty
goodness had allowed our nature (however depraved and cursed) He
gave the first (propagation) as a blessing in the beginning of His works
from which He rested the seventh day. The second (conformation) He
gives as yet, unto every work which He as yet effects. For if He
should but withhold His efficient power from the creatures of the earth,
they could neither increase to any further perfection, nor continue in the
state wherein He should leave them. So then God creating man, gave him
a power to propagate others, and to allow them a power of propagation
also, yet no necessity, for that God can deprive them of it, whom He
pleases : but it was His gift unto the first parents of mankind, and He
having once given, has not taken it any more away from all mankind.

But although sin did not abolish this propagation, yet it made it far
less than it had been if sin had not been. “For man being in honour,
understood not, and so was compared unto beasts, begetting such like
as himself :” yet has he a little spark left him of that reason whereby
he was like the image of God. Now if this propagation wanted con-
formation, nature could keep no form nor similitude in her several
productions. For if man and woman had not had copulation, and that
God nevertheless would have filled the earth with men, as He made
_ Adam, without generation of man or woman, so could He have made
all the rest. But man and women coupling, cannot beget unless He
create. For as Saint Paul says in a spiritual sense, touching man's
conformation in righteousness: “Neither is he that planteth, anything,
nor he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase: ” so may we say
here; neither is he that sows anything, nor she that conceives, but
God that gives the form.

_ It is His daily work that the seed unfolds itself out of a secret clue as
it were, and brings the potential forms into such actual comeliness. It
is He that makes that strange combination of a nature incorporeal (the
ruler) and a nature corporal (the subject) by which the whole becomes

—"

t= ed

a living creature. A work so admirable, that it is able to amaze the —

mind, and force praise to the Creator from it, being observed not only
in man, whose reason gives him excellence above all other creatures,
but even in the least fly that is, one may behold this wondrous and
stupendous combination! It is He that has given man’s spirit an

Of the City of God. 363

apprehension (which seems, together with reason, to lie dead in an
infant, until years bring it to use) whereby he has a power to conceive
knowledge, discipline, and all habits of truth and good quality, and by
which he may extract the understanding of all the virtues, of prudence,
justice, fortitude, and temperance, to be thereby the better armed
against viciousness, and incited to subdue them by the contemplation
of that high and unchangeable goodness: which height although it do
not attain unto, yet who can sufficiently declare how great a good it is,
and how wonderful a work of the Highest, being considered in other
respects ? for besides the disciplines of good behaviour, and the ways
to eternal happiness (which are called virtues) and besides the grace of
God which is in Jesus Christ, imparted only to the sons of the promise,
man’s invention has brought forth so many and such rare sciences and
arts (partly necessary, and partly voluntary) that the excellency of his
capacity makes the rare goodness of his creation apparent, even then
when he goes about things that are either superfluous or pernicious,
and shews from what an excellent gift, he has those his inventions and
practices. What varieties has man found out in buildings, attires,
husbandry, navigation, sculpture, and imagery! what perfection has he
shewn in the shows of theatres, in taming, killing, and catching wild
beasts! What millions of inventions has he against others, and for
himself in poisons, arms, engines, stratagems, and such like! What
thousands of medicines for the health, of meats for the throat, of
means and figures to persuade, of eloquent phrases to delight, of verses
for pleasure, of musical inventions and instruments! How excellent
inventions are geography, arithmetic, astrology, and the rest! How large
is the capacity of man, if we should stand upon particulars! Lastly,
how cunningly, and with what exquisite wit have the philosophers and
the heretics defended their very errors: it is strange to imagine, for
here we speak of the nature of man’s soul in general, as man is mortal,
without any reference to the way of truth, whereby he comes to the
life eternal.

Now, therefore, seeing that the true and only God, that rules all in
His almighty power and justice, was the Creator of this excellent essence
Himself; doubtless man had never fallen into such misery (which many
shall never be freed from, and some shall) if the sin of those that first
incurred it had not been extremely malicious. Come now to the body:
though it be mortal as the beasts are, and more weak than many of
theirs are, yet mark what great goodness, and providence is shewn
herein by God Almighty. Are not all the sinews and’ members dis-
posed in such fit places, and the whole body so composed, as if one
would say, “Such an habitation is fittest for a spirit of reason”? You
see the other creatures have a grovelling posture, and look towards earth,
whereas man’s upright form bids him continually look to the things in

364 St Augustine.

heaven. The nimbleness of his tongue and hand in speaking and
writing, and working in trades, what does it but declare for whose use
they were made so? Yet (excluding respect of work) the very con-
gruence, and parility of the parts do so concur, that one cannot discern
whether man’s body were made more for use, or for comeliness. For
there is no part of use in man, that has not the proper decorum, as we
should better discern, if we knew the numbers of the proportions wherein
each part is combined to the other, which we may perhaps come to
learn by those that are apparent. As for the rest that are not seen,
as the courses of the veins, sinews, and arteries, and the secrets of
the spirituals, we cannot come to know their numbers: for though
some butcherly surgeons (anatomists they call them) have often cut up
dead men (and live men sometimes) to learn the posture of man’s
inward parts, and which way to make incisions, and to effect their cures ; ©
yet those members whereof I speak, and whereof the harmony and pro-
portion of man’s whole body consists, no man could ever find,
or durst ever undertake to inquire, which if they could be known we
should find more reason, and pleasing contemplation in the forming
of the interior parts, than we can observe or collect from those that lie»
open to the eye. There are some parts of the body that concern
“decorum” only, and are of no use: such are the paps on the breasts
of men, and the beard, which is no strengthening, but an ornament to —
the face, as the naked chins of women (which being weaker, were other- |
wise to have this strengthening also) do plainly declare. Now if there
be no exterior part of man that is useful, which is not also comely, and
if there be also parts in man that are comely and not useful, then God
in the framing of man’s body, had a greater respect of dignity than of
necessity. For necessity shall cease, the time shall come when we shall do
nothing but enjoy our (one another’s beauty without lust) beauties, for
which we must especially glorify Him, to whom the psalm says: ‘“ Thou
hast put on praise and comeliness.” And then for the beauty and use of
other creatures, which God has set before the eyes of man (though as yet
miserable and amongst miseries) what man is able to recount them? the
universal gracefulness of the heavens, the earth, and the sea, the bright-
ness of the light in the sun, moon, and stars, the shades of the woods, the
colours and smells of flowers, the numbers of birds, and their varied hues
and songs, the many forms of beasts and fishes, whereof the least are the
rarest (for the fabric of the bee or ant is more to be wondered at than the
whales) and the strange alterations in the colour of the sea (as being in
several garments), now one green, then another; now blue, then purple?
How pleasing a sight sometimes it is to see it rough, and how more
pleasing when it is calm! And O, what a hand is that, that gives so
many meats to assuage hunger! so many tastes to those meats (without
help of cook) and so many medicinal powers to those tastes! How

Of the City of God. 365

delightful is the interchange of day and night! the temperateness of
air, and the works of nature in the barks of trees, and skins of beasts !
O, who can draw the particulars? How tedious should I be in every
peculiar of these few, that I have here as it were heaped together, if I
should stay upon them one by one! Yet are all these but solaces of
man’s miseries, no way pertinent to his glories.

What are they then that his bliss shall give him, if that his misery
has such blessings as these? What will God give them whom He has
predestinated unto life, having given such great things even to them
whom He has predestinated unto death? What will He give them in
His kingdom, for whom He sent His only Son to suffer all injuries, even
to death, upon earth? Whereupon Saint Paul says unto them; “ He
who spared not His own Son, but gave Him for us all unto death,” how
shall He not with Him give us all things also? When this promise is
fulfilled, O what shall we be then? How glorious shall the soul of man
be, without all stain and sin, that can either subdue or oppose it, or
against which it need to contend: perfect in all virtue, and enthroned
in all perfection of peace!

How great, how delightful, how true, shall our knowledge of all things
be there, without all error, without all labour, where we shall drink at
the spring-head of God’s sapience, without all difficulty, and in all
felicity? How perfect shall our bodies be, being wholly subject unto
their spirits, and thereby sufficiently quickened, and nourished without
any other sustenance, for they shall now be no more natural, but
spiritual, they shall have the substance of flesh, quite exempt from all
fleshly corruption !

CHAPTER XXV.

Of the obstinacy of some few in denying the resurrection, which the whole
world believes, as tt was foretold.

But as touching the good things of the mind, which the blessed shall
enjoy after this life, the philosophers and we are both of one mind. Our
difference is concerning the resurrection, which they deny with all the
power they have: but the increase of the believers has left us but a
few oppressors ; Christ, (that disproved the obstinate even in His pro-
per body) gathering all unto His faith, learned and unlearned, wise and
simple. ‘The world believed God’s promise in this ; who promised also
that it should believe this. It was not Peter’s magic that wrought it,
but it was that God, of whom (as I have said often, and as Porphyry
confesses from their own oracles) all their gods do stand in awe and
dread. Porphyry calls Him “ God the Father, and King of Gods :” but
God forbid that we should believe His promises as they do, that will
not believe what He had promised, that the world should not believe.

366 St Augustine.

a

For why should we not rather believe as the world does, and as it was

prophesied it should, and leave them to their own idle talk that will not
believe this that the world was promised to believe? For if they say we

must take it in another sense ; because they will not do that God whom |
they have commended, so much injury, as to say His Scriptures are idle

things ; yet surely they injure Him as much, or more, in saying they
must be understood otherwise than the world understands them,
which is, as God both promised and performed. Why cannot God
raise the flesh unto eternal life? Is it a work unworthy of God?
Touching His omnipotence, whereby He works for many wonders, I

have said enough already. If they would shew me a thing which He

cannot do: I will tell them He cannot lie. Let us therefore believe

only what He can do, and not believe what He cannot. If they do not —
then believe that He can lie, let them believe that He will do what He

promises. And let them believe as the world believes, which (He

promised) should believe, and whose belief He both produced, and
praised. And how prove they the work of the resurrection any way

unworthy of God? There shall be no corruption therein, and that is all
the evil that can befall the body. Of the elementary orders, we have
spoken already: as also of the possibility of the swift motion of the in-
corruptible body. Of man’s bodily health in this world, and the weak-
ness of it in respect of immortality, I think our thirteenth book con-

ee

tains what will satisfy. Let such as have not read this book, or do
not remember what they have read, read the passages of this present

volume already recorded.

CHAPTER XXVL

That Porphyry’s opinion that the blessed souls should have no bodies, is |
confuted by Plato himself, who says that the Creator promised the in-

Jerior deities, that they should never lose their bodies.

Yea but (says Porphyry) a blessed soul must have no body: so that the
body’s incorruptibility is nothing worth, if the soul cannot be blessed
unless it want a body. But hereof we have sufficiently argued in the
thirteenth book: only I will rehearse but one thing only. If this were
true, then Plato their great master must go reform his books, and say
that the gods must go and leave their bodies (for he says they all have
celestial bodies), that is, they must die, ere they can be blessed : howso-
ever that he has made them, promised them immortality, and an eternal
dwelling in their bodies, to assure them of their bliss: and this should
come from his powerful will, not from their natures. The same Plato,
in the same place, overthrows their reason that say there shall be no
resurrection, because it is impossible for God, the uncreated Maker of
the other gods, promising them eternity, says plainly that He will do a

Of the City of God. 367

thing which is impossible: for thus (says Plato) He said unto them:
“‘ Because you are created, you cannot but be mortal and dissoluble:
yet shall you never die, nor be dissolved : fate shall not control my will,
which is a greater bond for your perpetuity, than all those whereby you
are composed.” No man that heareth this, (be he never so doltish, so he
be not deaf), will make any question that this was an impossibility which
Plato’s Creator promised the deities which he had made. For saying,
“You cannot be eternal, yet by my will you shall be eternal,” what is
it but to say, my will shall make you a thing impossible? He therefore
that (as Plato says) did promise to effect this impossibility, will also raise
the flesh in an incorruptible, spiritual and immortal quality. Why do
they now cry out that that is impossible which God has promised, which
the world has believed, and which it was promised it should believe,
seeing that Plato himself is of our mind, and says that God can work
impossibilities? Therefore it must not be the want of a body, but the
possession of one utterly incorruptible, that the soul shall be blessed in.
And what such body shall be so fit for their joy, as that wherein (while
it was corruptible) they endured such woe? They shall not then be
plagued with that desire that Virgil relates out of Plato, saying:

“ Rursus et incipiunt in corpora velle reverti.”
‘ Now ’gan they wish to live on earth again.’

I mean, when they have their bodies that they desired, they shall no
more desire any bodies: but shall possess those for ever, without being
ever severed from them so much as one moment.

CHAPTER XXVII.

Contrarieties between Plato and Porphyry, wherein tf either should yied
unto other, both should find out the truth.

Prato and Porphyry held divers opinions, which if they could have
come to reconcile, they might perhaps have proved Christians. Plato
said, “ That the soul could not be always without a body: but that the
souls of the wisest at length should return into bodies again.” Por-
phyry said, “That when the purged soul ascendeth to the Father, it re-
turns no more to the infection of this world.” Now if Plato had yielded
unto Porphyry, that the soul’s return should be only into a human body :
and Porphyry unto Plato, that the soul should never return unto the
miseries of a corruptible body, if both of them jointly had held both
these positions, I think it would have followed, both that the souls
should return into bodies, and also into such bodies as were befitting
them for eternal felicity. For Plato says, “ The holy souls shall return
to human bodies”: and Porphyry says, “ The holy souls shall not return

368 St Augustine,

to the evils of this world.” Let Porphyry therefore say with Plato,
“They shall return unto bodies”: and Plato with Porphyry, “ They
shall not return unto evils”: and then they shall both say, ‘‘ They shall
return unto such bodies as shall not molest them with any evils ; namely
those wherein God has promised that the blessed souls should have their
eternal dwellings. For this I think they would both grant us ; that if
they confessed a return of the souls of the just into immortal bodies, it
should be into those wherein they suffered the miseries of this world,
and wherein they served God so faithfully, that they obtained an ever-
lasting delivery from all future calamities.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

What either Plato, Labeo, or Varro might have contributed to the true faith
of the resurrection, tf there had been an harmony in their opinions.

Some of us liking and loving Plato for a certain eloquent and excellent
kind of speaking: and because his opinion has been true in some things,
say that he thought something like unto that which we do, concerning the
resurrection of the dead, which thing Tully so touches in his De Republicé
that he affirms that he rather spake in sport, than that he had any intent
to relate it, as a matter of truth. For he declares a man revived, and
related some things agreeable to Plato’s disputations. Labeo also says,
that there were two which died both in one day, and that they met
together in a crossway, and that afterward they were commanded to
return again to their bodies, and then that they decreed to live in per-
petual love together, and that it was so until they died afterward. But
these authors have declared, that they had such a resurrection of body,
- as they have had, whom truly we have known to have risen again, and to
have been restored to this life: but they do not declare it in that man-
ner, that they should not die again. Yet Marcus Varro records a more
strange, admirable, and wonderful matter, in his books which he wrote
of a nation of the people of Rome. I have thought good to set down
his own words. “Certain Genethliaci (wizards) have written,” says he,
“that there is a regeneration, or second birth in men to be born again,
which the Greeks call raAfyyevso/av.” They have written, that it is
brought to pass, and effected in the space of four hundred and forty
years: so that the same body and soul which had been foretime knit
together, should return again into the same conjunction and union they
had before. Truly this Varro, or those Genethliaci (I know not who
they are for he has related their opinion concealing their names) have
said something, which although it be false, because the souls returning
into the bodies, which they have before managed, will never after forsake
them: notwithstanding it serves to stop the mouth of those babblers. |

Of the City of God. 369

and to overthrow the stronghold of many arguments of that impossibility.
For they do not think it an impossible thing which have thought these
things, that dead bodies resolved into air, dust, ashes, humours, bodies
of devouring beasts, or of men themselves, should return again to that
they have been. Wherefore let Plato, and Porphyry, or such rather as
do affect them and are now living, if they accord with us, that holy
souls shall return to their bodies, as Plato says, but not to return to any
evils as Porphyry says, that that sequel may follow, which our Christian
faith does declare, to wit, that they shall receive such bodies, as they
shall live happily in them eternally without any evil: let them (I say)
assume and take this also from Varro, that they return to the same
bodies in which they had been before time, and then there shall be a
sweet harmony between them, concerning the resurrection of the flesh
eternally.

CHAPTER XXIX.

Of the quality of the vision, with which the saints shall see God in the
world to come.

Now let us see what the saints shall do in their immortal and spiritual
bodies, their flesh living now no more carnally but spiritually: so far
forth as the Lord shall vouchsafe to enable us. And truly what manner
of action or rather rest and quietness it shall be, if I say the truth, I
know not, for I have never seen it by the senses of the body, but if
I shall say I have seen it by the mind, that is by the understanding,
alas, how great, or what is our understanding in comparison of that
exceeding excellency? For there is, “the peace of God which passeth
all understanding,” as the apostle says. What understanding, but ours, or
peradventure of all the holy angels? For it does not pass the under-
standing of God. If therefore the saints shall live in the peace of God,
without doubt they shall live in that peace, ‘which passeth all under-
standing.” Now there is no doubt, but that it passes our understanding.
But if it also pass the understanding of angels, for He seems not to except
them when He says, “ all understanding ;” then according to this saying
we ought to understand that we are not able, nor any angels, to know
that peace wherewith God Himself is pacified, in such sort as God
knows it. But we being made partakers of His peace, according to the
measure of our capacity, shall obtain a most excellent peace in us, and
amongst us, and with Him, according to the quantity of our excellency.
In this manner the holy angels according to their measure do know the
same: but men now do know it in a far lower degree, although they
excel in acuteness of understanding.

We must consider what a great man did say, ‘“‘ We know in part, and
we prophesy in part, until that come which is perfect. And we see

II, 2A

370 St Augustine.

now in a glass darkly: but then we shall see Him face to face.” So
do the holy angels now see which are called also our angels, because
we being delivered from the power of darkness, and translated to the
kingdom of God, having received the pledge of the Spirit, have already
begun to pertain to them, with whom we shall enjoy that most holy and
pleasant City of God, of which we have already written so many books.
So therefore the angels are ours, which are the angels of God, even as
the Christ of God is our Christ. They are the angels of God, because
they have not forsaken God: they are ours, because they have begun
to account us their citizens. For the Lord Jesus has said, “‘ Take heed
ye do not despise one of these little ones: For I say unto you, that
their angels do always behold the face of My Father, which is in heaven.”
As therefore they do see, so also we shall see, but as yet we do not see
so. Wherefore the apostle says that which I have spoken a little
before, “‘We see now in a glass darkly: but then we shall see Him
face-to face.” Therefore that vision is kept for us, being the reward of
faith, of which also the apostle John, speaking, says: “ When He shall
appear, we shall be like unto Him, for we shall see Him as He is.”

But we must understand by “the face of God,” His manifestation,
and not to be any such member, as we have in the body, and do call it
by that name. Wherefore when it is demanded of us, what the saints
shall do in that spiritual body, I do not say, that I see now, but I say,
that I believe: according to that which I read in the Psalm, “I be-
lieved, and therefore I spake.” I say, therefore, that they shall see God
in the body, but whether by the same manner, as we now see by the
body, the sun, moon, stars, sea and earth, it is no small question.

It is a hard thing to say, that then the saints shall have such bodies,
that they cannot shut and open their eyes, when they will. But it is
more hard to say, that whosoever shall shut their eyes there, shall not
see God. For if the prophet Elisha, absent in body, saw his servant
Gehazi receiving the gifts which Naaman gave unto him, whom the
aforesaid prophet had cleansed from the deformity of his leprosy, which
the wicked servant thought he had done secretly, his master not seeing
him: how much more shall the saints in that spiritual body see all
things, not only if they shut their eyes, but also from whence they are
absent in body? For then shall that be perfect of which. the apostle
speaking, says, “‘We know in part, and prophesy in part: but when
that shall come which is perfect, that which is in part shall be done
away.

Afterward that he might declare by some similitude, how much this
life differs from that which shall be, not of all sorts of men, but
also of them which are endowed here with an especial holiness, he says,
“When I was a child, I understood as a child, I spake as a child, I
understood as a child ; but when I became a man, I put away childish

Of the City of God. 371

things. We see now in a glass darkly, but then we shall see face
to face. Now I know in part, but then shall I know even as I am
known.” If therefore in this life, where the prophecy of admirable
men is to be compared to that life, as children to a young man: not-
withstanding Elisha saw his servant receiving gifts where he himself was
not: shall therefore the saints stand in need of corporal eyes to see
those things which are to be seen, which Elisha being absent needed
not to see his servant? For when that which is perfect is come, neither
now the corruptible body shall any more aggravate the soul: and no
incorruptible thing shall hinder it.

For according to the LXX. interpreters, these are the words of the
prophet to Gehazi: “ Did not my heart go with thee, and I knew that
the man turned back from his chariot to meet thee, and thou hast re-
ceived money,” &c. But as Jerome has interpreted it out of the
the Hebrew: “Was not my heart,” says he, “in presence, when the
man returned from his chariot to meet thee?” Therefore the prophet
said, “ That he saw this thing with his heart,” wonderfully aided by the
Divine power, asno man doubts. But how much more shall all abound
with that gift, when God shall be all things in all? Nevertheless those
corporal eyes also shall have their office, and shall be in their place,
and the spirit shall use them by the spiritual body. For the prophet
did use them to see things present, though he needed not them to see
his absent servant, which present things he was able to see by the spirit,
though he did shut his eyes, even as he saw things absent, where he was
not with them. God forbid therefore, that we should say that the saints
shall not see God in that life, their eyes being shut, whom they shall
always see by the spirit. But whether they shall also see by the eyes of
the body, when they shall have them open, from hence there arises a
question. For if they shall be able to do no more, in the spiritual body by
that means, as they are spiritual eyes, than those are able which we have
now, without all doubt they shall not be able to see God: therefore they
shall be of a far other power, if that incorporate nature shall be seen by
them, which is contained in no place, but is whole everywhere. For we
do not say, because we say that God is both in heaven and also in
earth (for He says by the prophet, “I fill heaven and earth ”), that He has
one part in heaven, and another in earth, but He is whole in heaven, and
whole in earth, not at several times, but He is both together, which no
corporal nature can be. Therefore there shall be a more excellent and
potent force of those eyes, not that they may see more sharply than some
serpents and eagles are reported to see : for those living creatures by their
greatest sharpness of seeing can see nothing but bodies, but that they
may also see incorporate things. And it may be that great power of
seeing was granted for a time to the eyes of holy Job, yea in that mortal
body, when he says to God, “By the hearing of the ear I did hear

372 St Augustine.

Thee before, but now my eye doth see Thee, therefore I despised my-
self, consumed, and esteemed myself to be earth and ashes.” Although
there is nothing to the contrary, but that the eye of the heart may be
understood, concerning which eyes the apostle says : “To have the eyes
of your heart enlightened.” But no Christian man doubts, that God
shall be seen with them, when He shall be seen which faithfully receives
that which God the Master says: “ Blessed are the pure in heart, be-
cause they shall see God.” But it now is in question, whether He may
be seen there also with corporal eyes. For that which is written :
“ And all flesh shall see the salvation of God,” without any knot, or
scruple of difficulty may so be understood, as if it had been said, “ And
every man shall see the Christ of God,” who, as He has been seen in
body, shall likewise be seen in body, when He shall judge the quick,
and the dead. But that He is the Salvation of God, there are also
many other testimonies of the Scriptures.

But the words of that worthy and reverend old man Simeon declare
it more evidently : who, after he had received the infant Christ into his
hands, “‘ Now,” says he, “‘lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace,
according to Thy word: because mine eyes have seen Thy salvation.”
Also that, which the above recited Job says, as it is found in many
copies taken from the Hebrew: “And I shall see God in my flesh.”
Verily he prophesied the resurrection of the flesh without all doubt, yet
he said not, “ By my flesh.” For if he had said so, God Christ might
have been understood, who shall be seen in the flesh by the flesh: now
indeed it may also be taken, “In my flesh I shall see God :” as if he
had said, “I shall be in my flesh when I shall see God.” And that
which the apostle says, “‘ Face to face,” does not compel us that we be-
lieve that we shall see God by this corporal face, where there are cor-
poral eyes, whom we shall see by the spirit without intermission.
For unless there were a face also of the inward man, the same apostle
would not say, “But we, beholding the glory of the Lord with the
face unveiled, are transformed into the same image from glory unto
glory, as it were to the spirit of the Lord.” Neither do we otherwise
understand that which is sung in the Psalm. ‘Come unto Him and be
enlightened, and your faces shall not be ashamed.” For by faith we
come unto God, which as it is evident, belongeth to the heart and not
to the body (universally). But because we know not now how near the
spiritual body shall approach, for we speak of a thing of which we have
no experience, where some things are, which cannot otherwise be under-
stood, the authority of the divine scriptures does not resist, but succour
us: it must needs be that that happen in us which is read in the book
of Wisdom: ‘The thoughts of men are fearful, and our sore fights are
uncertain.” For if that manner of arguing of the philosophers, by which
they dispute that intelligible things are so to be seen by the aspect of

Of the City of God. 373

the understanding ; and sensible, that is to say, corporal things, so to
be seen by the sense of the body, that neither the understanding can be
able to behold intelligible things by the body, nor corporal things by
themselves, can be most certain unto us, truly it should likewise be
certain, that God could not be seen by the eyes of a spiritual body.
But both true reason and prophetical authority will deride this manner
of disputing. For who is such an obstinate and opposite enemy to the
truth, that he dare say, that God knows not these corporal things ?
Has he therefore a body by the eyes of which he may learn those
things? Furthermore does not that, which we spake a little before of
the prophet Elisha, declare sufficiently also, that corporal things may
be seen by the spirit, not by the body? For when his servant received
rewards, though it was corporally done, yet the prophet saw it, not by
the body but by the spirit. As therefore it is manifest, that bodies are
seen by the spirit: what if there shall be such a great power of the
spiritual body, that the spirit may also be seen by the body? For God
is a Spirit. Moreover, every man knows his own life, by which he
lives now in the body, and which does make these earthly members
grow and increase, and makes them living, by the inward sense, and
not by the eyes of the body. But he sees the lives of other men by the
body, when as they are invisible. For from whence do we discern
living bodies from unliving, unless we see the bodies and lives together.
But we do not see with corporal eyes the lives without bodies.
Wherefore it may be, and it is very credible, that then we shall so see
the worldly bodies of the new heaven, and new earth, as we see God
present everywhere, and also governing all corporal things, by the
bodies we shall carry, and which we shall see, wheresoever we shall
turn our eyes, most evidently all clouds of obscurity being removed ;
not in such sorts as the invisible things of God are seen now, being
understood by those things which are made in a glass, darkly and in
part, where faith prevailed more in us, by which we believe, than the
object of things which we see by corporal eyes. But even as, so soon
as we behold men amongst whom we live, being alive, and performing
vital motions : we do not believe that they live, but we see them to live,
when we cannot see their life without bodies: which notwithstanding
we clearly behold by the bodies, all ambiguity being removed: so
wheresoever we shall turn about these spiritual eyes of our bodies, we
shall likewise see incorporate God governing all things by our bodies.
God therefore shall either so be seen by those eyes, because they
have something in that excellency, like unto the understanding whereby
the incorporal nature may be seen, which is either hard or impossible to
declare by any examples or testimonies of divine scriptures: or that
which is more easily to be understood, God shall be so known, and
conspicuous unto us, that He may be seen by the spirit of every one of

374 St Augustine. :

us, in every one of us, may be seen of another in another, may be seen
in himself, may be seen in the new heaven and in the new earth, and in
every creature, which shall be then: may be seen also by the bodies in
every body, wheresoever the eyes of the spiritual body shall be directed
by the sight coming thither. Also our thoughts shall be open, and dis-
covered to one another, for then shall that be fulfilled which the
apostle intimates when he said, “Judge not anything before the time,
until the Lord come, who will lighten things that are hid in darkness,
and make the counsels of the heart manifest, and then shall every man
have praise of God.”

CHAPTER XXX.

Of the eternal felicity of the city of God, and the perpetual Sabbath.

How great shall that felicity be, where there shall be no evil thing,
where no good thing shall lie hidden, there we shall have leisure to
utter forth the praises of God, which shall be all things in all! For
what other thing is done, where we shall not rest with any slothfulness,
nor labour for any want I know not. I am admonished also by the
- holy song, where I read, or hear, “ Blessed are they, O Lord, which
dwell in Thy house, they shall praise Thee for ever and ever.” All the
members and bowels of the incorruptible body, which we now see dis-
tributed to diverse uses of necessity, because then there shall not be
that necessity, but a full, sure, secure, everlasting felicity, shall be ad-
vanced and go forward in the praises of God. For then all the numbers
(of which I have already spoken) of the corporal harmony shall not lie
hid, which now lie hid : being disposed inwardly and outwardly through
all the members of the body, and with other things which shall be seen
' there, being great and wonderful ; shall kindle the reasonable souls with
delight of such a reasonable beauty to sound forth the praises of such a -
great and excellent workman. What the motions of those bodies shall be
there, I dare not rashly define,when I am not able to dive into the depth of
that mystery. Nevertheless both the motion and state, as the form of
them shall be comely and decent, whatsoever it shall be, where there
shall be nothing which shall not be comely. Truly where the spirit
will, there forthwith shall the body be: neither will the spirit will any-
thing, which may not beseem the body nor the spirit. There shall be
true glory, where no man shall be praised for error or flattery. True
honour, which shall be denied unto none which is worthy, shall
be given unto none unworthy. But neither shall any unworthy
person covet after it, where none is permitted to be, but he which
is worthy. There is true peace, where no man suffers anything which
may molest him, either from himself or from any other. He himseli
shall be the reward oi virtue, which has given virtue, and has

Of the City of God. 375

promised Himself unto him, than whom nothing can be better and
greater. For what other thing is that, which He has said by the
Prophet: “I will be their God, and they shall be My people:” but I
will be whereby they shall be satisfied: I will be whatsoever is lawfully
desired of men, life, health, food, abundance, glory, honour, peace, and
all good things? For so also is that rightly understood, which the
apostle says: ‘‘ That God may be all in all.” He shall be the end of
our desires, who shall be seen without end, who shall be loved without
any satiety, and praised without any tediousness. This function, this
affection, this action verily shall be unto all as the eternal life shall be
common to all. But who is sufficient to think, much more to utter
what degrees there shall also be of the rewards for merits, of the honours
and glories? But we must not doubt, but that there shall be degrees.
And also that blessed city shall see that in itself, that no inferior shall
envy his superior: even as now the other angels do not envy the arch-
angels: as every one would not be which he has not received, although
he be combined with a most peaceable bond of concord to him which
has received, by which the finger will not be the eye in the body, when
a peaceable conjunction, and knitting together of the whole flesh
contains both members. Therefore one shall so have a gift less than
another has, that he also has this gift, that he will have no more.
Neither therefore shall they not have free will, because sins shall not
delight them. For it shall be more free being freed from the delight of
sinning to an undeclinable and steadfast delight of not sinning. For
the first free will, which was given to man, when he was created
righteous, had power not to sin, but it had also power to sin: but this
last free will shall be more powerful than that, because it shall not be
able to sin. But this also by the gift of God, not by the possibility of
his own nature. For it is one thing to be God, another thing to be
partaker of God. God cannot sin by nature, but he which is partaker
of God, receiveth from Him, that he cannot sin. But there were de-
grees to be observed of the divine gift, that the first free will might be
given, whereby man might be able not to sin: the last whereby he
might not be able to sin: and the first did pertain to obtain a merit, the
latter to receive a reward. But because that nature sinned, when it
might sin, it is freed by a more bountiful grace, that it may be brought
to that liberty, in which it cannot sin. For as the first immortality,
which Adam lost by sinning, was to be able not to die. For so the will
of piety and equity shall be free from being lost, as the will of felicity is
free from being lost. For as by sinning we neither kept piety nor .
felicity: neither truly have we lost the will of felicity, felicity being
lost.

Truly is God himself therefore to be denied to have free will, because
He cannot sin? Therefore the free will of that city shall both be one

376 St Augustine.

in all, and also inseparable in every one, freed from all evil, and filled

with all good, enjoying an everlasting pleasure of eternal joys, forgetful

of faults, forgetful of punishments, neither therefore so forgetful of her

deliverance, that she be ungrateful to her deliverer. For so much as
concerns reasonable knowledge she is mindful also of her evils, which

are past: but so much as concerns the experience of the senses,

altogether unmindful.

For a most skilful physician also knows almost all diseases of the
body, as they are known by art: but as they are felt in the body, he
knows not many, which he has not suffered. As therefore there are
two knowledges of evils: one, by which they are not hidden from the
power of the understanding, the other, by which they are infixed to the
senses of him, that feels them (for all vices are otherwise known by
the doctrine of wisdom, and otherwise by the most wicked life of a
foolish man) so there are two forgetfulnesses of evils. For a skilful and
learned man does forget them one way, and he that has had experience
and suffered them, forgets them another way. The former, if he
neglect his skill, the latter, if he want misery. According to this forget-
fulness which I have set down in the latter place, the saints shall not
be mindful of evils past. For they shall want all evils, so that they shall
be abolished utterly from their senses. Nevertheless that power of
knowledge, which shall be great in them, shall not only know their own
evils past, but also the everlasting misery of the damned. Otherwise, if
they shall not know that they have been miserable, how, as the psalm
says, “Shall they sing the mercies of the Lord for ever?” Than which
song nothing verily shall be more delightful to that city, to the glory of
the love of Christ, by whose blood we are delivered. There shall be
perfected, “Be at rest and see, because I am God.” Because there
shall be the most great Sabbath having no evening, which the Lord
commended unto us in the first works of the world, where it is read,
“ And God rested the seventh day from all His works He made, and
sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His works, which God be-
gan to make.” For we ourselves also be the seventh day, when we shall
be replenished, and repaired with His benediction and sanctification.
There being freed from toil we shall see, because He is God, which we
ourselves would have been when we fell from Him, hearing from the
seducer: “Ye shall be as gods:” and departing from the true God, by
whose means we should be gods by participation of Him, not by forsak-
ing Him. For what have we done without Him, but that we have
fallen from Him and gone back in His anger? Of whom we being
restored and perfected with. a: greater grace shall rest for ever, seeing
that He is God, with whom we shall-be replenished, when He shall be
all in all: for our good' works also, although they are rather understood
to be His than ours, are then imputed unto us to obtain this Sabbath;

Of the City of God. 377

because if we shall attribute them unto ourselves, they shall be servile,
when it is said of the Sabbath: “ Ye shall not-do any servile work in it.”
For which cause it is said also by the prophet Ezekiel. “And I have
given my Sabbaths unto them for a sign between Me, and them, that
they might know, that I am the Lord, which sanctify them : Then shall
we know this thing perfectly, and we ‘shall perfectly rest and shall per-
fectly see, that He is God. If therefore that number of ages, as of days
be accounted according to the distinctions of times, which seem to be
expressed in the sacred Scriptures, that Sabbath day shall appear more
evidently, because it is found to be the seventh, that the first age, as it
were the first day, be from Adam unto the flood, then the second from
thence unto Abraham, not by equality of times, but by number of genera-
tions. For they are found to have a tenth number. From hence now,
as Matthew the Evangelist doth conclude, three ages do follow even
unto the coming of Christ, every one of which is expressed by fourteen
generations. From Abraham unto David is one, from thence even unto
the transmigration into Babylon, is another, the third from thence unto
the incarnate nativity of Christ. So all of them are made five. Now
this age is the sixth, to be measured by no number, because of that
which is spoken. “It is not for you to know the seasons, which the
Father has placed in His own power.” After this age God shall rest as
in the seventh day, when God shall make that same seventh day to rest
in Himself, which we shall be. Furthermore it would take up a long
time to discourse now exactly of every one of those several ages. But
this seventh shall be our Sabbath, whose end shall not be the evening,
but the Lord’s day, as the eighth eternal day, which is sanctified and
made holy by the resurrection of Christ, not only prefiguring the eternal
rest of the spirit, but also of the body. There we shall rest, and see,
we shall see, and love, we shall love, and we shall praise: Behold what
shall be in the end without end! For what other thing is our end, but
to come to that kingdom of which there is no end. I think I have dis-
charged the debt of this great work by the help of God. Let them
which think I have done too little, and they which think I have done
too much, grant me a favourable pardon: But let them, which think I
have performed enough, accepting it with a kind congratulation, give no
thanks unto me, but “ unto the Lord with me.” Amen.

FINIS.
THEOLOCCY "IBRARY
CLA” ALIFE,

J- BAIN AND SONS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.

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